Nik
Unger,
PhD
candidate
David
R.
Cheriton
School
of
Computer
Science
How can a group of devices securely communicate over an insecure network? If there are only two devices in the group, we have an amazing solution: the Diffie-Hellman key exchange. We even have a fancy cryptographic trick to solve the problem for a group of three devices.
But what if a group of four devices wants to securely communicate? What if there are even more than four devices? Perhaps surprisingly, we don't yet know of a good way to solve this problem. We are lacking suitable cryptography.
This talk will take you on a tour of the long history of trying to solve this problem with *unsuitable* cryptography. Along the way, we will encounter ideas that are surprisingly geometric in nature, and bring them to life with visualizations.
This talk assumes some basic familiarity with public-key cryptography and the Diffie-Hellman key exchange.