CMI Special Lunch Seminar

    A cryptographic code obfuscator takes as input the description of a program P and outputs a program P' that is functionally equivalent to the original, but should hide the inner workings of the original program to the maximal extent possible. Until very recently no general purpose obfuscators existed that were based on cryptographically hard problems; however, in 2013 researchers proposed the first candidate obfuscator for "indistinguishability obfuscation". Since then there has been a tremendous interest in the subject from the cryptography community.
    In this talk I will first introduce the concept and define indistinguishability obfuscation. Then I will show techniques for building cryptographic applications from it. Finally, I will conclude with discussing the challenging open problems in the area.