Computational Algebra Seminar: Gebhardt -- Braid Groups in Cryptography

Speaker: Volker Gebhardt (UWS)
Title: Braid Groups in Cryptography
Time & Place: 3-4pm, Thursday 25 January, Carslaw 535

Abstract:
After recalling braid groups and the Garside normal form, I will
explain the Diffie-Hellman like key exchange introduced by Ko et
al. and some related cryptographic protocols, which are all based on
the conjugacy search problem (CSP) in braid groups.

In the second part of the talk I will present recent solutions to the
CSP and we will see that they yield effective attacks on these
cryptographic protocols in their present form.

Time permitting, I will finally discuss some possible modifications to
the cryptographic protocols, such as appropriate choice of keys or
replacing the CSP by the decomposition problem.