Master and PhD examples Prof. Yvo Desmedt Department of Computer Science Florida State University, USA Partially funded by NSF and DARPA  by Yvo Desmedt

A. General interests B. Master thesis: examples: 1. Computer viruses 2. Information Hiding and Cryptography C. PhD thesis: examples: Threshold cryptography

A. General interests 1. Cryptography: –Classical topics: Authenticity, Integrity, Privacy –Modern topics: anonymity broadcast privacy protecting against insiders, e.g. –when a company is signing –protecting copyright law enforcement …

A. General interests 2. Computer Security: –Computer viruses –Information hiding –Secure distributed computation –Survivable computers

A. General interests 3. Network Security: –PKI –Security and Reliability in: non-point-to-point networks in unknown networks wireless

B. Master thesis: examples: 1. Computer viruses: platform independent computer virus: written in LaTeX/emacs: Student: K. McMillan 2. Information Hiding and Cryptography Students: S. Hou and T. V. Le Presented at: Asiacrypt 98, Information Hiding 99

B. Master thesis: Information Hiding Motivation: History: steganography: older than cryptography? Importance of modern steganography: –Bypass key escrow –Protect privacy –Achieve some form of anonymity –Protect freedom of expression –Facilitate spies to communicate –…

B. Master thesis: Information Hiding Current security of steganography –low to poor –requires complex computer programs Security goals: –Privacy: unconditional –Steganography: warden=human without computer –Key: must also be steganographic Implementation goal: –Decryption: without computer

B. Master thesis: Information Hiding Audio cryptography: binary case: –Sound (and also light!) is a wave. This implies that a wave can cancel another one provided these are 180 degrees out of phase. –Note: for light this has been called: Optical Cryptography: however expensive equipment is needed to realize this. –Cover: e.g., music –Demo:

B. Master thesis: Information Hiding Audio cryptography: non-binary case: Simulated output: this is the method to use when there is no analog mixer and amplifier: Modular Amplitude Method: share 1, share 2, simulated sum Phase Shifting Method: share 1, share 2, simulated sum Frequency Flipping Method: share 1, share 2, simulated sum

C. PhD thesis: examples: Threshold cryptography Students: Y. Frankel and B. King Allows, e.g. company to sign instead of a single individual. For more details: see: Several publications