Συντάχθηκε 07-01-2019 17:30
Τρίτη 8/1, 12:00-13:30 -- Αμφιθέατρο Κτηρίου Επιστημών
Ομιλήτρια: Foteini Baldimtsi (George Mason Univ)
Τίτλος: TumbleBit: An Untrusted Bitcoin-Compatible Anonymous Payment Hub
ABSTRACT
Achieving privacy in a digital world is a rather challenging problem. Privacy-preserving solutions are harder to construct and, at the same time, are significantly more computationally intensive than privacy-intrusive ones. In my work I develop cryptographic protocols that protect user privacy, when at the same time are practical and can be applied in practice.
In this talk I will focus on the case of blockchain systems and show how to solve the two major technical challenges faced by Bitcoin: (1) protect the privacy of payments made via Bitcoin, and (2) scale Bitcoin to meet
increasing use. To address these challenges, I will present TumbleBit, an unidirectional unlinkable payment hub that uses an untrusted intermediary, the Tumbler, to perform off the blockchain transactions. TumbleBit allows
to scale the volume and velocity of bitcoin-backed payments while being fully compatible with today's Bitcoin protocol. At the same time, Tumblebit offers anonymity to the transactions routed through the Tumbler, guaranteeing that no-one, not even the Tumbler, can link a payment from its payer to payee. I will explain how a combination of cryptographic tools and blockchain properties is used to make Tumblebit work and discuss
how these techniques are relevant beyond Bitcoin.
BIO
Foteini Baldimtsi is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at George Mason University. She received her Ph.D. from Brown University in May 2014 and worked as a postdoctoral researcher in Boston
University and University of Athens. Her research interests are in the areas of cryptography, security and data privacy. She focuses on designing provably secure cryptographic schemes for a variety of applications such
as privacy preserving identity management, secure electronic payments and private and scalable blockchain transactions. She is a recipient of an IBM faculty award and her research is supported by NSF, NSA and the Zcash Foundation.
