Online Seminar: Breaking and Building End-to-End Encrypted Systems

Abstract: Today’s computer systems and their owners fail to protect data. Exacerbating this are new threats stemming from the rise of cloud computing. The consequences are dire: sensitive information like financial statements, medical records, and private messages are disclosed to malicious parties. In my research at the intersection of security, cryptography, and systems, I work to change this by breaking and building efficient end-to-end (E2E) encrypted systems, which protect data by keeping it encrypted throughout processing and storage. In this talk, I’ll explain some of the flaws I’ve found in existing E2E-encrypted systems deployed to billions of users, how the flaws have led me to a new methodology for building these systems that’s rooted in co-design of cryptography and systems, and some of the new E2E-encrypted systems I’m building.

Bio: Paul Grubbs is a PhD candidate in Computer Science at Cornell University. In his research in security, cryptography, and systems, he designs and analyzes systems that use encryption to protect data. To do this, he uses theoretical foundations from cryptography and other fields, empirical methods, and practical knowledge of real systems. He is the recipient of a 2017 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.