Ημερολόγιο Εκδηλώσεων

Την Τρίτη 8/1/2019, στις 13:00 στο Αμφιθέατρο του Κτηρίου Επιστημών  θα δοθεί ομιλία από την Καθ. Φωτεινή Μπαλδίμτση (George Mason  Univ) σε θέματα blockchain/bitcoin+privacy. Τα στοιχεία της ομιλίας ακολουθούν. Θα υπάρχει ζωντανή διαδικτυακή μετάδοση εδώ. 

WHEN/WHERE: Τρίτη 8/1/2019, 13:00 -- Αμφιθέατρο Κτηρίου Επιστημών

SPEAKER: Foteini Baldimtsi (George Mason Univ)

TITLE: TumbleBit: An Untrusted Bitcoin-Compatible Anonymous Payment Hub

ABSTRACT

Achieving privacy in a digital world is a rather challenging problem, privacy-preserving solutions are harder to construct and, at the same
time, are significantly more computationally intensive than  privacy-intrusive ones. In my work I develop cryptographic protocols that protect user privacy, when at the same time are practical and can  be applied in practice.

 In this talk I will focus on the case of blockchain systems and show how to solve the two major technical challenges faced by Bitcoin: (1) protect the privacy of payments made via Bitcoin, and (2) scale Bitcoin to meet increasing use. To address these challenges, I will present TumbleBit, an unidirectional unlinkable payment hub that uses an untrusted intermediary, the Tumbler, to perform off the blockchain transactions. TumbleBit allows to scale the volume and velocity of  bitcoin-backed payments while being fully compatible with today's Bitcoin protocol. At the same time, Tumblebit offers anonymity to the transactions routed through the Tumbler, guaranteeing that no-one, not even the Tumbler, can link a payment from its payer to payee. I will explain how a combination of cryptographic tools and blockchain properties is used to make Tumblebit work and discuss how these techniques are relevant beyond Bitcoin.

BIO

Foteini Baldimtsi is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at George Mason University. She received her Ph.D. from Brown University in May 2014 and worked as a postdoctoral researcher  in Boston University and University of Athens. Her research interests  are in the areas of cryptography, security and data privacy. She  focuses on designing provably secure cryptographic schemes for a  variety of applications such as privacy preserving identity  management, secure electronic payments and private and scalable blockchain transactions. She is a recipient of an IBM faculty award  and her research is supported by NSF, NSA and the Zcash Foundation.