Faglige nøgleord: Cryptography, online security, applied math, quantum computers
Oplæg tilgængeligt på: Engelsk og italiensk
The vast majority of people around the world keep private information on their smartphones and laptops. You use messaging apps (WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal) to share your secrets, banking apps to check your finances, and large companies access personal information every day. But have you ever thought about the security of these daily actions? When you log into your bank account, how can you be sure you're interacting with your bank and not a scammer?
Fortunately, cryptographers are here to help you. We've asked these questions on your behalf, and we work to keep your life simpler by providing secure ways to protect and share your private information.
We have well-established solutions to protect you against today's computers. But the landscape is changing, as quantum computers are set to enter the scene in the near future. These computers can solve problems that "classical" computers cannot, challenging our current security certainties and prompting us to consider new alternatives to keep you safe against these powerful adversaries.
My project focuses on provable security, a branch of cryptography dedicated to proving the security of new cryptographic constructions in a theoretical framework. This field combines math and computer science and, in some aspects, incorporates engineering notions.
I would like to engage with students to raise their awareness about online security. I also want to show that cryptography is a cool way to apply theoretical knowledge in topics such as math and physics. I plan to start the presentation by having them answer (anonymously) some questions about cryptography and then use their answers to start a conversation. Afterward, I'll show them how we prove security in cryptography using games as examples.
I have always been interested in mathematics, and after high school, I pursued a Bachelor's and then a Master's degree in the subject. Initially, my focus was mainly on the theoretical side of the field. However, towards the end of my Master's, I began reading about cryptography and realized that I could apply all the knowledge I'd gained to something beyond just proving theorems. This led me to explore PhD opportunities in cryptography, and I discovered that DTU has a young and growing cryptography group that works on various aspects of the field.