Practical homomorphic encryption over integers (2017)

#1

Post by hamilyon2 » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 5:19 PM UTC

Practical homomorphic encryption over integers (2017)
arxiv.org

Re: Practical homomorphic encryption over integers (2017)

#2

Post by guiomie » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 7:23 PM UTC

This is one of the current 'tech' trends that I'm following, the idea of homomorphic encryption is really cool. I feel like there is a lot of real world applications for it, but I have failed to find them yet.

Re: Practical homomorphic encryption over integers (2017)

#3

Post by Yhippa » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 7:29 PM UTC

guiomie wrote: post #2

This is one of the current 'tech' trends that I'm following, the idea of homomorphic encryption is really cool. I feel like there is a lot of real world applications for it, but I have failed to find them yet.

One of the big ones is internet searches. Also processing PII/HIPAA data.

Re: Practical homomorphic encryption over integers (2017)

#4

Post by jerf » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 7:30 PM UTC

guiomie wrote: post #2

This is one of the current 'tech' trends that I'm following, the idea of homomorphic encryption is really cool. I feel like there is a lot of real world applications for it, but I have failed to find them yet.

I really want to sarcastically say "blockchain homomorphic encryption", but, well, it's not necessarily a terrible idea, honestly. One can imagine some combination of the primitives in which you could prove that you added here the same amount you subtracted from there, that neither total is below zero, but for which the number actually transferred is encrypted. The current use case for something like BitCoin is often security focused, but there's also simply a privacy concern that could be addressed there.

Re: Practical homomorphic encryption over integers (2017)

#5

Post by srgseg » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 7:38 PM UTC

guiomie wrote: post #2

This is one of the current 'tech' trends that I'm following, the idea of homomorphic encryption is really cool. I feel like there is a lot of real world applications for it, but I have failed to find them yet.

The "Confidential Transactions" scheme for cryptocurrencies uses homomorphic encryption.

The idea is that you can prove that the encrypted input and output amounts in a transaction balance to zero, without having to actually reveal what any of those amounts are.

See https://people.xiph.org/~greg/confidential_values.txt

Re: Practical homomorphic encryption over integers (2017)

#6

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 7:47 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #4

guiomie wrote: post #2

This is one of the current 'tech' trends that I'm following, the idea of homomorphic encryption is really cool. I feel like there is a lot of real world applications for it, but I have failed to find them yet.

I really want to sarcastically say "blockchain homomorphic encryption", but, well, it's not necessarily a terrible idea, honestly. One can imagine some combination of the primitives in which you could prove that you added here the same amount you subtracted from there, that neither total is below zero, but for which the number actually transferred is encrypted. The current use case for something like BitCoin is often…

[deleted]

Re: Practical homomorphic encryption over integers (2017)

#7

Post by CapacitorSet » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 8:01 PM UTC

guiomie wrote: post #2

This is one of the current 'tech' trends that I'm following, the idea of homomorphic encryption is really cool. I feel like there is a lot of real world applications for it, but I have failed to find them yet.

One of the side projects I have is [FHE-CPU](https://github.com/CapacitorSet/FHE-CPU), an effort to make general-purpose homomorphic computation possible with a Moxie-like CPU, but it's a daunting effort to even get the basics working.

Re: Practical homomorphic encryption over integers (2017)

#8

Post by SilasX » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 8:19 PM UTC

guiomie wrote: post #2

This is one of the current 'tech' trends that I'm following, the idea of homomorphic encryption is really cool. I feel like there is a lot of real world applications for it, but I have failed to find them yet.

There are certainly real-world applications, just not with the current level of overhead that known algorithms require.

The real-world use case is being able upload data to a cloud provider and do queries and computation on it without the provider ever knowing what's inside. e.g. "How much did I spend last month?"

Re: Practical homomorphic encryption over integers (2017)

#9

Post by KarenSatantsby » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 8:21 PM UTC

Love, Simon was a really good movie but (yoohoo spoiler ahead)it kind of made me feel bad because of what a twat Simon is for most of the movie and when he finally gets his guy after never decrypting the letters and finding out who only because of a salt in the form of Blue making out with a hot chick I was like meh.. and the whole ferris wheel had no emotional impact - that and I wanted to punch the antagonist so badly the whole movie and I am not a punch in the face kind of guy

Re: Practical homomorphic encryption over integers (2017)

#10

Post by sp332 » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 8:40 PM UTC

guiomie wrote: post #2

This is one of the current 'tech' trends that I'm following, the idea of homomorphic encryption is really cool. I feel like there is a lot of real world applications for it, but I have failed to find them yet.

Cloud computing is the big one. You might want to rent some remote computer time without sending plaintext data to a third party. Homomorphic encryption lets you upload encrypted data and instructions for a third party to operate on it without having to decrypt it first.

Edit: Try Greg Egan's book Permutation City.