Title: Privacy and Secrecy in the Age of the Internet and Search Engines

Name: Michael O. Rabin

Harvard University

Time: October 12 (Monday) 11:00-12:00

Location: Lecture Hall, FIT Building, Tsinghua University
Host Unit: ITCS, Tsinghua University

Abstract

 

Without a doubt, the most extensive and highest impact application of computer technology is for communication, creation of vast databases and evermore sophisticated and useful searches on databases. Consider medical records. In the foreseeable future, all of a person’s records will be accessible for the purpose of treatment from everywhere, and intelligent searches on medical records will assist in diagnosis and treatment. But the on-line availability of vast personal, financial/commercial, data, and the conduct of business over the Internet raise major problems of security, secrecy, and privacy protection. We shall discuss examples of major emerging applications of the Internet world, and innovative technologies for security, privacy and secrecy protection.





Biography

 

T.J. Watson Sr. Professor of CS, Harvard University

Rabin got his M.Sc. from the Hebrew University and his Ph.D. from Princeton University, where he had his first academic appointment. Later he was visiting member of the Institute for Advanced Study, interacting with K. Godel. He was Albert Einstein Professor of Mathematics at the Hebrew University, serving as its Rector (Academic Head) from 1972 to 1975. At various times he held Visiting Professorships at Yale University, the Weizmann Institute, the Israel Technion, UC Berkeley, MIT, University of Paris, the Courant Institute of Mathematics, Caltech, ETH Zurich, Columbia University, and Kings College London. He was Saville Fellow at Merton College, Oxford, and Steward Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. From 82 to 94 he served on the IBM Science Advisory Committee. In Spring 2009 he was Visiting Researcher at Google His contributions were recognized by awards including:

The ACM Turing Award in Computer Science, the ACM Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award, the Rothschild Prize in Mathematics, the Weizmann Prize in Exact Sciences, the IEEE Charles Babbage Award,

the Harvey Prize for Science and Technology, the Israel Prize in Computer Science,

the EME"T Prize in Computer Science,

IACR Fellow Rabin was elected as member or foreign honorary member to academies including the US National Academy of Sciences, the French Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and Foreign Member Royal Society. He holds honorary degrees from New York University, Haifa University, the University of Bordeaux I, Israel's Open University, Ben Gurion University, and the University of Wroclaw . Rabin's research interests include complexity of computations, efficient algorithms, randomized algorithms, DNA to DNA Computing, parallel and distributed computation computer security, cryptography and financial cryptography.

In recent years he has created, with Y. Aumann and Y.Z. Ding, Hyper-Encryption, the first ever encryption scheme provably providing everlasting secrecy against a computationally unbounded adversary; invented, with S.Micali and J. Kilian, Zero Knowledge Sets, a new primitive for privacy and security protocols; invented and implemented, with W. Yang and H. Rao, a micro chip for physical generation of a strong stream of truly random bits. Hyper-Encryption has been implemented at Harvard and MT via a novel limited access model. Most recently he has innovated practical ZKPs applicable to auctions and other financial processes.