ERC Consolidator Grant: Advanced Practical Post-Quantum Cryptography from Lattices

My ERC Consolidator Grant application titled “Advanced Practical Post-Quantum Cryptography from Lattices” has been selected(*) for funding by the European Research Council. Here’s my blurb:

Standardisation efforts for post-quantum public-key encryption and signatures are close to completion. At the same time the most recent decade has seen the deployment, at scale, of more advanced cryptographic algorithms where no efficient post-quantum candidates exist. These algorithms e.g. permit to give strong guarantees even after some parties were compromised, privacy-preserving contact lookups, credentials and e-cash. This project will tackle the challenge of “lifting” such constructions to the post-quantum era by pursuing three guiding questions:

What is the cost of solving lattice problems with and without hints on a quantum computer? Answers to this question will provide confidence in the entire stack of lattice-based cryptography from “basic” to “advanced”. Studying the presence of hints tackles side-channel attacks and advanced constructions.

What are the lattice assumptions that establish feature- and (near) performance-parity with pre-quantum cryptography? Standard lattice assumptions do not seem to establish feature parity with pairing-based or even some Diffie-Hellman-based pre-quantum constructions, how can we achieve efficient and secure advanced practical post-quantum solutions?

How efficient is a careful composition of lattice-base cryptography with other assumptions? If we want to deploy our post-quantum solutions in practice, we will need to design hybrid schemes that are secure if either of their pre- or post-quantum part is secure and to deploy many advanced lattice-based primitives in practice we need to carefully compose them with zero-knowledge proofs to rule out some attacks.

Lattice-based cryptography has established itself as a key technology to realise both efficient basic primitives like post-quantum encryption and advanced solutions such as computation with encrypted data and programs. It is thus well positioned to tackle the middle ground of advanced yet practical primitives for phase 2 of the post-quantum transition.

Concretely, this grant award means that I’ll be recruiting for several postdoc and PhD student (international fees, i.e. not restricted to people from the UK) positions in post-quantum and lattice-based cryptography. I have a bit of flexibility in when to put those on the market, so if you think these positions would fit you well, feel free to get in touch with me to informally discuss it.

In somewhat related news, we’re hiring for a lecturer (≈ assistant professor) position at King’s College London. We’re also hiring for PhD or postdoc residency (≈ intern) positions at SandboxAQ.

(*) Well, there is the tiny issue of Brexit: “As described in Annex 3 of the ERC Work Programme 2022, successful applicants established in a country in the process of associating to Horizon Europe will not be treated as established in an associated country if the association agreement does not apply by the time of the signature of the grant agreement.” See also UKRI’s guidance on the UK’s guarantee scheme.

10 PhD Positions at Royal Holloway’s Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security for the Everyday

At Royal Holloway we are again taking applications for ten fully-funded PhD positions in Information Security. See the CDT website and the ISG website for what kind of research we do. Also, check out our past and current CDT students and our research seminar schedule to get an idea of how broad and diverse the areas of information security are in which the ISG works.

More narrowly, to give you some idea of cryptographic research (and thus supervision capacity) in the Cryptography Group at Royal Holloway: currently, we are nine permanent members of staff: Simon Blackburn (Maths), Saqib A. Kakvi, Keith Martin, Sean Murphy, Siaw-Lynn Ng, Rachel Player, Liz Quaglia and me. In addition, there are three postdocs working on cryptography and roughly 14 PhD students. Focus areas of cryptographic research currently are: lattice-based cryptography and applications, post-quantum cryptography, symmetric cryptography, statistics, access control, information-theoretic security and protocols.

To give you a better sense of what is possible, here are some example projects. These are in no way prescriptive and serve to give some ideas:

I am, as always, interested in exploring lattice-based and post-quantum cryptography; algorithms for solving the hard underlying protocols, efficient implementations, lifting pre-quantum constructions to the post-quantum era.
Together with my colleague Rikke Jensen, we want to explore security needs and practices in large-scale protests using ethnographic methods. We’ve done an interview-based (i.e. not ethnography-based) pilot with protesters in Hong Kong and think grounding cryptographic security notions in the needs, erm, on the ground, will prove rather fruitful.
My colleague Rachel Player is looking at privacy-preserving outsourced computation, with a focus on (fully) homomorphic encryption.
My (new) colleague Guido Schmitz uses formal methods to study cryptographic protocols.

Note that most of these positions are reserved for UK residents, which does, however, not mean nationality (see CDT website for details) and we can award three of our scholarships without any such constraint, i.e. international applicants. The studentship includes tuition fees and maintenance (£21,285 for each academic year).

To apply, go here. Feel free to get in touch if you have questions about whether this is right for you. Official announcement follows.

Continue reading “10 PhD Positions at Royal Holloway’s Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security for the Everyday” →

10 PhD Positions at Royal Holloway’s Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security for the Everyday

More narrowly, to give you some idea of cryptographic research (and thus supervision capacity) in the ISG/at Royal Holloway: currently, there are nine permanent members of staff working on cryptography: Simon Blackburn (Maths), Carlos Cid, Keith Martin, Sean Murphy, Siaw-Lynn Ng, Rachel Player, Liz Quaglia and me. In addition, there are five postdocs working on cryptography and roughly 15 PhD students. Focus areas of cryptographic research currently are: lattice-based cryptography and applications, post-quantum cryptography, symmetric cryptography, statistics, access control, information-theoretic security and protocols.

Note that most of these positions are reserved for UK residents, which does, however, not mean nationality (see CDT website for details) and there might also be some wiggle room for EU residents (yes, still!).

Continue reading “10 PhD Positions at Royal Holloway’s Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security for the Everyday” →

More on those 10 PhD Positions at Royal Holloway’s CDT in Cyber Security

My colleagues who work on the social/cultural side of (information) security together with colleagues from other departments have put together an outline for people who come from disciplines such as Human Geography, Sociology, Criminology, Law, Political Science, International Relations, Classics, Archaeology, Cultural Studies and Media Studies.

Fully Funded 4-year PhD Studentships at the EPSRC funded Royal Holloway Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security for the Everyday

We are pleased to advertise positions for up to 10 PhD studentships to begin in September 2019 at the new Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Cyber Security for the Everyday at Royal Holloway University of London.

We seek applications or informal expressions of interest from students and researchers with an interest in cyber security. In addition to Mathematics and Computer Science, relevant disciplines may include Human Geography, Sociology, Criminology, Law, Political Science, International Relations, Classics, Archaeology, Cultural Studies, Media Studies and more.

Building on two previous Centres for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security based at Royal Holloway, and anchored within the Information Security Group, the new CDT reflects the growth in and need for interdisciplinary research which critically engages with everyday cyber security questions. It does so by combining an understanding of technical systems with social science and humanities approaches to cyber security, personal information and growing datafication. In a broad sense, PhD projects will explore cyber security in the context of societal needs, critically evaluate the contribution cyber security makes to societal and individual securities and place discussions over the ethics, rights, responsibility and fairness of cyber security at the centre rather than at the periphery. Other academic departments involved in the Centre include Computer Science, Geography, Law, Psychology and Politics and IR.

Whilst broad in scope, the CDT is driven by two overarching strands of enquiry:

The technologies deployed in digital systems that people use, sometimes inadvertently, every day; and

Everyday societal experiences of cyber security, including how different societies, communities, groups and individuals conceptualise, materialise, negotiate, and respond to increasingly digitally mediated and technologically driven worlds

A central aspect of the CDT programme is interdisciplinary collaborations as students work on shared projects and other collaborative activities within their PhD cohort. This is encouraged throughout their studies but a key component of the first year, which is devoted to training activities and individual and group projects. Students may not have established project ideas at the time of recruitment but develop these during the first year.

The core strategic objectives of the CDT in Cyber Security for the Everyday are:

To develop cohorts of truly multi-disciplinary researchers, with a broad understanding of cyber security and a strong appreciation of the interplay between technical and social questions;

To promote research in cyber security that is original, significant, responsible, of international excellence and responsive to societal needs; and

To engage with stakeholders in the cyber security community and wider society

We are keen to encourage applications from across the Social Sciences and Humanities. Potential areas of interdisciplinary study include but are not limited to:

Conceptualise

The arts and critical discourses of cyber security

Agenda-setting, framing and cyber security

Feminist cyber security

Social difference, intersectionality and cyber security

Intimate spaces of cyber security (including the body, home, etc.)

Everyday/routine violences and cyber security

Solidarity and resistance and alternative forms of cyber security

Narratives of security

Ontological security across disciplines and forms of expression

Materialise

Contemporary archaeologies of cyber security

Cyber security and the city

The materiality of digital mediation in cyber security

Media as data

Resistance through data, memes/gifs/films

Simulation and simulated affect -emotional security data & machines

Negotiate

Sustainable development goals and cyber security

The impact of cyber security and public policy

Territory, diplomacy and cyber security

Regional and international cyber security

Transnational and global governance of cyber security

Cyber security of democratic institutions

Cybersecurity at work

Organisational approaches to and processes of cybersecurity

Cybersecurity profession and professionals

E-surveillance at work

Respond

Mobilities, automated and autonomous mobility systems

Resistance, dissent and cyber security

Hate crimes and affect

Cultural economies, crypto-currencies and piracy

The dark web, visibility and invisibility

Practices of data hacking in media consumption.

10 PhD Positions at Royal Holloway’s Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security

At Royal Holloway we are now taking applications for ten fully-funded PhD positions in Information Security. See the CDT website and the ISG website for what kind of research we do. In particular, check out our past and current CDT students to get an idea of how broad and diverse the areas of information security are in which they work.

Note that most of these positions are reserved for UK residents, which does, however, not mean nationality (see CDT website for details) and there might also be some wiggle room for EU residents.

Continue reading “10 PhD Positions at Royal Holloway’s Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security” →

10 PhD Positions at Royal Holloway’s Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security

At Royal Holloway we have ten PhD positions in Information Security. The catch is that almost all of those positions are reserved for UK residents. Note that this does not mean nationality, see funding page (there might also be some wiggle room in some cases). For more information see the CDT website and the ISG website for what kind of research we do.

Welcome to the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Cyber Security at Royal Holloway. The Centre was established in 2013, and has as its main objective to produce cohorts of highly-trained researchers with a broad understanding of cyber security.

The CDT is hosted by the Information Security Group (ISG), and provides multidisciplinary training to annual cohorts of around ten students each. The students follow a 4-year doctoral programme: the first phase consists of a taught component comprising 25 per cent of the programme. The remaining three years follow the more traditional path of doctoral studies, with each student undertaking research in an advanced topic in the field of cyber security. See the CDT Course of Study page for more information about the programme.

CDT recruitment typically runs from November to April, to select students for the CDT cohort to start the following September. Selected applicants are awarded fully-funded PhD studentships (stipend and College fees) for four years. We consider applications from candidates with undergraduate and masters qualifications in a wide range of disciplines, including, but not limited to, mathematics, computer science, and electrical and electronic engineering.

We are now open to receive applications for students to start their PhD studies in September 2018.

Please explore the links below to learn more about the entry requirements, funding and eligibility, and how to apply to Royal Holloway’s CDT in Cyber Security.

10 PhD Positions at Royal Holloway’s Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security

At Royal Holloway we once again have ten PhD positions in Cyber Security nee Information Security. The catch is that almost all of those positions are reserved for UK residents. Note that this does not mean nationality, see funding page (there might also be some wiggle room in some cases). For more information see the CDT website and the ISG website for what kind of research we do. Closing date is 30 April.

Welcome to the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Cyber Security at Royal Holloway. The Centre was established in 2013, and has as its main objective to produce cohorts of highly-trained researchers with a broad understanding of cyber security.

The CDT is hosted by the Information Security Group (ISG), and provides multidisciplinary training to annual cohorts of around ten students each. The students follow a 4-year doctoral programme: the first phase consists of a taught component comprising 25 per cent of the programme. The remaining three years follow the more traditional path of doctoral studies, with each student undertaking research in an advanced topic in the field of cyber security. See the CDT Course of Study page for more information about the programme.

CDT recruitment typically runs from November to April, to select students for the CDT cohort starting every October. Selected applicants are awarded fully-funded PhD studentships (stipend and College fees) for four years. We consider applications from candidates with undergraduate and masters qualifications in a wide range of disciplines, including, but not limited to, mathematics, computer science, and electrical and electronic engineering.

We are now open for applications for the 2017/18 CDT cohort. We have a number of fully-funded studentships to award to qualified and eligible candidates, to start their PhD studies in September 2017. Closing date for receiving applications is 30 April 2017. We will however assess applications on an ongoing basis, and we reserve the right to make an offer to candidates before the closing date.

Please explore the links below to learn more about the entry requirements, funding and eligibility, and how to apply to Royal Holloway’s CDT in Cyber Security.