Day 1

Introduction to Cryptography – Information Theoretic Crypto by Dr. Nishanth Chandran

This session presents an overview of works that have been instrumental in taking MPC from theory to practice, with a specific focus on MPC in the context of machine learning.

Nishanth Chandran is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research India. His research interests are in cryptography in general and secure computation in particular. Prior to joining MSRI, Nishanth was a Researcher at AT&T Labs, and before that he was a Post-doctoral Researcher at MSR Redmond. Nishanth is a recipient of the 2010 Chorafas Award for exceptional achievements in research and his research has received coverage in science journals and in the media at venues such as Nature and MIT Technological Review. He has published several papers in top computer science conferences such as Crypto, Eurocrypt, IEEE S&P, CCS, STOC, FOCS, and so on. His work on position-based cryptography was selected as one of the top 3 works and invited to QIP 2011 as a plenary talk. Nishanth has served on the technical program committee of all the top cryptography conferences on several occasions and holds several US/International patents. Nishanth received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA, M.S. in Computer Science from UCLA, and B.E. in Computer Science and Engineering from Anna University (Hindustan College of Engineering), Chennai. Nishanth is also a top ranking (A grade) All India Radio South Indian Classical (Carnatic) Violinist and performs regularly at international venues such as the Madras Music Academy Chennai, Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre Mumbai, and Hollywood Bowl Los Angeles.

Day 2

Basics information theoretic tools II (Information theoretic MAC, Randomness extractors) by Prof. Sruthi Sekar

Sruthi Sekar is a faculty member of the Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) Department, IIT Bombay. She is part of the Theory Group and Trust Lab at IITB. Prior to joining Trust Lab in April 2024, Sruthi Sekar was a post-doctoral researcher at UC Berkeley, hosted by Sanjam Garg. She did her doctoral research at Indian Institute of Science under the supervision of Bhavana Kanukurthi and Manjunath Krishnapur. Her research interest lies in Cryptography and other related areas in Theoretical Computer Science.

Introduction to Symmetric-Key Cryptography (Part-1; Basics of SKE and modes of operation, MAC and hash functions) by Dr. Sikhar Patranabhis (IBM Research)

This session will cover some basic computational tools for cryptography, as well some topics in symmetric-key cryptography. The session will be broadly divided into three parts. The first part will present an overview of pseudorandom generators (PRGs), pseudorandom permutations (PRPs), stream ciphers, and block ciphers. The second part will cover pseudorandom functions (PRFs), symmetric-key encryption, and block cipher modes of operation. The final part will cover MACs and authenticated encryption. Each part will have associated group homework questions, and a tutorial session at the end of the session.

Sikhar Patranabis is a staff research scientist at IBM Research India. His research interests are in theoretical and applied cryptography, with recent focus on quantum-safe cryptography and privacy-preserving analytics. Prior to joining IBM, he was a staff researcher at VISA Research, USA and a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. He received his B.Tech and PhD from IIT Kharagpur. He is a young associate of the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE), an ACM India eminent speaker, and the recipient of the President of India gold medal from IIT Kharagpur. His research has appeared in top conferences and journals in security and cryptography (including JoC, Crypto, Eurocrypt, ACM CCS, IEEE S&P, NDSS), and has been recognized by an IACR best early career paper award at Asiacrypt, an IBM PhD fellowship, and a Qualcomm Research Innovation Fellowship. Outside of work, he is an ardent lover of music, cinema, and cricket.

Day 3

Introduction to Symmetric-Key Cryptography (Part-2) by Dr. Sikhar Patranabis

Introduction to Symmetric-Key Cryptography (Part-3) by Dr. Sikhar Patranabis

Introduction to Symmetric-Key Cryptography (Part-4) by Dr. Sikhar Patranabis

Day 4

Public Key Encryption I by Prof. Sruthi Sekar

Public Key Encryption II by Prof. Sruthi Sekar

Secure communication II by Prof. Chetan Kamath

Day 5

Introduction to fully-homomorphic encryption by Prof. Chetan Kamath

Instructions for FHE lab session by Mr. Archisman Dutta

Slides from the FHE lab session by Mr. Archisman Dutta

Day 6

Practical proof systems by Prof. Saravanan Vijayakumaran

Proof systems (Zero-knowledge proofs and SNARKs) by Prof. Chaya Ganesh.

Day 7

Basics of secure multi-party computation by Prof. Manoj Prabhakaran.

Day 8

Applied MPC by Dr. Nishanth Chandran (MSR)

Applied MPC by Dr. Nishanth Chandran (MSR)

Day 9