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cryptography
computer security
Computer Scientists Achieve ‘Crown Jewel’ of Cryptography
A cryptographic master tool called indistinguishability obfuscation has for years seemed too good to be true. Three researchers have figured out that it can work.
Q&A
Cryptography Pioneer Seeks Secure Elections the Low-Tech Way
Ronald Rivest helped come up with the RSA algorithm, which safeguards online commerce. Now he’s hoping to make democratic elections more trustworthy.
computer security
Cryptography That Is Provably Secure
Researchers have just released hacker-proof cryptographic code — programs with the same level of invincibility as a mathematical proof.
Abstractions blog
Mathematicians Seal Back Door to Breaking RSA Encryption
Digital security depends on the difficulty of factoring large numbers. A new proof shows why one method for breaking digital encryption won’t work.
quantum computing
Graduate Student Solves Quantum Verification Problem
Urmila Mahadev spent eight years in graduate school solving one of the most basic questions in quantum computation: How do you know whether a quantum computer has done anything quantum at all?
Abstractions blog
Why Quantum Computers Might Not Break Cryptography
A new paper claims that a common digital security system could be tweaked to withstand attacks even from a powerful quantum computer.
computer security
Hacker-Proof Code Confirmed
Computer scientists can prove certain programs to be error-free with the same certainty that mathematicians prove theorems.
cryptography
A Tricky Path to Quantum-Safe Encryption
In the drive to safeguard data from future quantum computers, cryptographers have stumbled upon a thin red line between security and efficiency.
cryptography
A New Design for Cryptography’s Black Box
A recent cryptographic breakthrough has proven difficult to put into practice. But new advances show how near-perfect computer security might be surprisingly close at hand.