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UCLA computer grad constructs “crown jewel of cryptography”

acm.org

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Re: UCLA computer grad constructs “crown jewel of cryptography”

#21

Post by qotgalaxy »

y7 wrote: post #20
hgsgm wrote: post #10

Trash title. > established the feasibility of mathematically rigorous software obfuscation from well-studied hardness conjectures

This is not about software obfuscation, this is about cryptographic indistinguishability obfuscation (iO). It's targeting a different problem -- software obfuscation is more about hiding program behavior, whereas iO is more useful for white box cryptography, like hiding an AES key. Maybe you could obfuscate software eventually, but we don't have practical efficiency even for tiny circuits. It's a bit like saying how…

[dead]

Re: UCLA computer grad constructs “crown jewel of cryptography”

#22

Post by tptacek »

astrange wrote: post #11
tptacek wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that where we're already at with ML classifiers?

Well, we know they're ML classifiers and they're not making syscalls. So there's obviously a limit to "we don't know what they do".

You'd still know what syscalls a cryptographically obfuscated userland program was making.

Re: UCLA computer grad constructs “crown jewel of cryptography”

#23

Post by Vervious »

hgsgm wrote: post #10

Trash title. > established the feasibility of mathematically rigorous software obfuscation from well-studied hardness conjectures

Why? It's not a trash title. Explain yourself, and give us some substance instead of being inflammatory.

Indistinguishability obfuscation (plus one-way functions) implies basically every cryptographic primitive there is, including public key encryption, NIZKs, and MPC. It gets close to giving us FHE (open question, I think). In some sense it is a "unifying primitive". Absolutely a holy grail to cryptographers, even if it isn't for you.

Re: UCLA computer grad constructs “crown jewel of cryptography”

#24

Post by [deleted] »

dataflow wrote: post #3
Animats wrote: post #2

That is a fascinating result. A remarkable mathematical achievement. And a nightmare. This thesis says that it's possible to obfuscate code in such a way that there is a lower bound on the level of effort needed to de-obfuscate it. That lower bound can apparently be comparable to the level of effort required to break a cryptosystem. So, coming soon, viruses and worms nobody can figure out. Code where no one can tell…

Is it just an existence proof or is it actually constructive? (I haven't read the dissertation.)

[deleted]

Re: UCLA computer grad constructs “crown jewel of cryptography”

#26

Post by hulahoof »

Hnaomyiph wrote: post #17
hgsgm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obfuscation is itself a malware signature.

Until it’s standard practice by all companies to protect up under the guise of consumer protection with all closed sourced software.

like that time sony gave everyone a rootkit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...

Re: UCLA computer grad constructs “crown jewel of cryptography”

#28

Post by grayhatter »

scarmig wrote: post #18
Animats wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure. It seems to be applied to "circuits", which in this context seems to mean a one-way set of logic gates (such as AND, OR, NOT, NAND) which map a set of boolean inputs to a set of boolean outputs. In theory you can construct any finite digital function that way. It's a useful abstraction, like a Turing machine. Unlike a Turing machine, a circuit is finite. All circuits are "solveable" (given a outputs, co…

Can't finite iteration and recursion just be unrolled? And storage just considered another part of the input?

In theory? Absolutely; unrolling a loop is exactly what it sounds like. Recursion is just a fancy loop. But there's a reason no one does that, and why no compilers emit that as code.

Re: UCLA computer grad constructs “crown jewel of cryptography”

#30

Post by jahewson »

scarmig wrote: post #18
Animats wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure. It seems to be applied to "circuits", which in this context seems to mean a one-way set of logic gates (such as AND, OR, NOT, NAND) which map a set of boolean inputs to a set of boolean outputs. In theory you can construct any finite digital function that way. It's a useful abstraction, like a Turing machine. Unlike a Turing machine, a circuit is finite. All circuits are "solveable" (given a outputs, co…

Can't finite iteration and recursion just be unrolled? And storage just considered another part of the input?

This is how SMT solvers deal with bounded quantifiers.
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