Pietrzak Group
Cryptography
Cryptography, the science of information security, is often relegated to the realm of spies and secret agents. However, we all rely on cryptography on a daily basis, for example when using internet banking or a wireless car key.
The cryptography group at ISTA works on theoretical and practical aspects of cryptography, including:
Crypto for light-weight devices. The team works towards provably secure cryptographic schemes for light-weight devices such as RFID tags, which are too constrained to run existing cryptographic schemes.
Leakage-resilient cryptography. This project aims to construct schemes that are provably secure against “side-channel attacks”. These are attacks in which an attacker exploits information leaked during computation from a cryptographic device like a smart card.
Sustainable Cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is the first successful digital currency. Its popularity comes from the fact that it is decentralized, so no central authority controls it. To achieve security despite decentralization, a huge amount of computing power is constantly wasted towards generating “proofs of work”. This is economically and ecologically problematic. The Pietrzak group works towards more sustainable cryptocurrencies.
Group Leader
On this site:
Team
Current Projects
Leakage-resilient cryptography | Cryptosystems for light-weight devices | Computational entropy | Memory-hard functions | Cryptocurrencies
Publications
Yeo MX. 2023. Advances in efficiency and privacy in payment channel network analysis. Institute of Science and Technology Austria. View
Avarikioti Z, Lizurej T, Michalak T, Yeo MX. 2023. Lightning creation games. 43rd International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems. ICDCS: International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems vol. 2023, 603–613. View
Hoffmann C, Simkin M. 2023. Stronger lower bounds for leakage-resilient secret sharing. 8th International Conference on Cryptology and Information Security in Latin America. LATINCRYPT: Conference on Cryptology and Information Security in Latin America, LNCS, vol. 14168, 215–228. View
Dodis Y, Ferguson N, Goldin E, Hall P, Pietrzak KZ. 2023. Random oracle combiners: Breaking the concatenation barrier for collision-resistance. 43rd Annual International Cryptology Conference. CRYPTO: Advances in Cryptology, LNCS, vol. 14082, 514–546. View
Schmid S, Svoboda J, Yeo MX. 2023. Weighted packet selection for rechargeable links in cryptocurrency networks: Complexity and approximation. SIROCCO 2023: Structural Information and Communication Complexity . SIROCCO: Structural Information and Communication Complexity, LNCS, vol. 13892, 576–594. View
ReX-Link: Krzysztof Pietrzak
Career
since 2016 Professor, Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA)
2011 – 2016 Assistant Professor, Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA)
2005 – 2011 Scientific Staff Member, Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2006 Postdoc, École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
2005 PhD, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Selected Distinctions
2015 ERC Consolidator Grant
2010 ERC Starting Grant
Additional Information
Download CV
Open Pietrzak group website
Physics & Beyond at ISTA
