CAREER: Unifying Provable Security Techniques for

This project focuses on the development of new tools for designing and proving the security of advancing cryptographic systems. The need for fine-grained access control to sensitive data has never been greater, and new paradigms like functional encryption have the potential to deliver cryptographic systems that can be tailored to a variety of data uses and privacy needs. However, as systems have grown more complex, they have naturally grown more difficult to reason about. By building new frameworks for security reductions and enhancing the mathematical foundations available to instantiate these frameworks, this project makes fast progress towards a flexible and more unified theory of cryptography that can meet these mounting challenges. In particular, the project integrates recent results in lattice cryptography with new advances in designing security reductions in order to provide strong arguments for the security of highly flexible and customizable cryptographic systems.

The project results are incorporated into the curriculum of advanced graduate classes to provide a more integrated view of cryptographic system design principles. Student researchers at the undergraduate and graduate levels are heavily involved and gaining valuable research experience. Outreach activities to younger student populations are also included, namely the production of a book that introduces middle-grade students to mathematical reasoning through a fairy-tale setting. In the long term, this project provides new tools for analyzing and designing flexible cryptographic systems, while also serving as an entry point and training ground for emerging young scientists.