YEDITEPE UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER ENGINEERING

SEMINAR
Cryptography - Beyond Encryption
Prof. Dr. Dominique Unruh* Institute of Computer Science, University of Tartu
March 21st, 2013 Engineering Building B-312 10:00 am Abstract
Cryptography is a powerful tool for protecting personal data. Nowadays, multitudes of small and large electronic devices store large amounts private and business data, much of it sensitive. We all use some of these devices (computers, mobile phones) on a daily basis, and knowingly or unknowingly, encrypt our data while it is stored or transferred over the network. That this works in a secure way is the task of the cryptographer. But cryptography goes beyond that; cryptography does not only deal with encryption of data. Cryptography gives us tools for working with private data that goes far beyond simple data transmission. This workshop will give a first insight into the goals and methods of the cryptographer. Introduction to Cryptography We will give an overview about what cryptography is, where is comes from, and what its tasks are. We will explain how cryptography is more than just encryption and that it covers a multitude of other tasks, such as privacy-preserving data mining and electronic voting. Everlasting Security and Quantum Cryptography Cryptography can be used to protect highly sensitive personal and business data. Cryptographic protocols are, however, only as secure as the underlying encryption schemes. We must face up to the fact that todays protocols may be broken in the future. It may happen that, if an attacker manages to record encrypted messages with which we have processed sensitive data, and the encryption scheme is then broken at a later date, the attacker will have retrospective access to the data. In relation to highly confidential data such as, e.g., medical records or state secrets, this is an unacceptable risk. We will show how this problem can be tackled with methods of modern cryptography, using tools from quantum mechanics.

Professor Dominique Unruh received his PhD (summa cum laude) from the Department of Informatics at the University of Karlsruhe in 2006. From 2006 to 2008 he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Saarland University, and from 2008 to 2011 as a junior research group leader in the Cluster of Excellence Multimodal Computing and Interaction at the same university. Since March 2011, he is Professor of Information Security at the Institute of Computer Science of the University of Tartu. Contact website: http://www.cs.ut.ee/~unruh/