[Colloquium] Alex Hoover Candidacy Exam/Nov 28, 2023

[meganwoodward at uchicago.edu]

This is an announcement of Alex Hoover's Candidacy Exam.
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Candidate: Alex Hoover

Date: Tuesday, November 28, 2023

Time:  1:30 pm CST

Remote Location:  https://uchicago.zoom.us/j/96088938004?pwd=VmRrSEtjcC9zQlI1ZC9ZdFFGSVZjdz09.

Location: JCL 390

Title: Security and Efficiency in Outsourced Data Processing

Abstract: Structured Encryption (StE) enables a client to securely store and query data stored on an untrusted server without using expensive cryptographic solutions. Recent constructions of StE have moved beyond basic queries, and now support large subsets of SQL. However, the security of these constructions is poorly understood, and no systematic analysis has been performed.

We present the first leakage-abuse attacks against StE for SQL schemes. Our attacks can be run by a passive adversary on a server with access to some information about the distribution of underlying data, a common model in prior work. They achieve partial query recovery against select operations and partial plaintext recovery against join operations.

This presentation primarily focuses on one chapter of the proposed dissertation. It will only briefly touch on the other chapters, which explore the tension between security and efficiency through impossibility results and new constructions.

Advisors: David Cash

Committee Members: David Cash, Aloni Cohen, and Raul Castro Fernandez