University of Hertfordshire
School
of Physics, Engineering and Computer Science
Classical
and Quantum Security, Networks and Distributed Systems
The following
research areas are currently being explored and are available to join under the
PhD programme. For further information please contact Dr William Joseph Spring
via j.spring@herts.ac.uk
Quantum
Based Distributed Systems and Networks
Team:
Dr
William Joseph Spring, Dr Hannan Xiao, Preeti Kandwal
Recent
developments in technology for quantum based repeaters
have extended the range available for communicating information enabling the
potential for realising quantum based networks, distributed systems and a
quantum based internet. Quantum repeaters employing entanglement swapping are
currently reported as achieving distances in excess of 100km together with
reports of direct peer to peer quantum key distribution also in excess of
100km. Quantum based networks are under development with a range of 2000km,
with private commercial quantum communication networks already reported as
completed.
The areas of
research that this group is involved in are:
· Quantum Ad Hoc
Networks
· Quantum IoT
(Internet of Things)
· Quantum Concepts for
Distributed Environments
· Quantum Stochastic
Processes with Applications in Distributed Systems
Classical
and Quantum Based Voting Schemes
Team: Dr William Joseph
Spring
Various properties
have emerged as being desirable from the literature regarding classical secret
ballot voting schemes. Amongst these is the concept of resilience which
involves the properties of universal verifiability, privacy, and robustness.
A universally verifiable election scheme is a scheme deemed
open to scrutiny by all interested parties. Compliance with this property
ensures that ballots are carried out correctly and that subsequent tallies are
fairly assessed. From a scheme satisfying the privacy property an
honest participant is assured that their vote remains confidential, provided
the number of attackers does not grow too large. With the property of robustness an
election scheme has the capacity to recover from faults again, provided the
number of parties involved does not grow too large. Schemes satisfying these
three properties are said to be resilient. The concept of a
receipt-free election scheme has also emerged as a desirable property
particularly as a counter to the risk of vote buying/coercion. Receipt-free
election schemes ensure that voters cannot prove, to other parties, the particular
vote cast within the scheme. Further desirable properties, are to
be found in the literature. Voting protocols performed within a classical
setting are in general grouped according to their use of: homomorphism, MIX
nets and blind signatures.
Since the
publication of the ground breaking paper ‘Quantum
Protocols for Anonymous Voting and Surveying’ in 2007, quantum based voting
schemes have developed into an established area of research in its own right, with
quantum based schemes involving anonymity, verifiability, conjugate coding, distributed
multipartite states, quantum key distribution, quantum blockchains and quantum
games. Hand in hand with secure systems
comes the potential for attacks based for example, on corrupt voters, forgery,
impersonation, exploitable protocols, and lattice-based attacks
.
The areas of
research that this group is involved in are:
· Quantum
Blockchains, Games and Voting Schemes
· Quantum Free (PQC)
Voting Schemes
· Quantum Stochastic
Voting Protocols
Classical
and Quantum based Cybersecurity
Team: Dr William J
Spring, Dr Hannan Xiao, Aldo Febro, Jacob Abegunde, Peter Orioha
The advent of
Shor’s algorithm in the mid 1990’s raised the potential to disarm asymmetric
cipher schemes based on either the DLP, ECDLP or IFP. Governments, security
agencies and e-commerce were now under threat, concerned with the anticipated
timescale involved in developing a quantum computer, a quantum computer with
sufficient processing power upon which Shors
algorithm could effectively be run. However
devastating a prospect this appeared to be, the cryptographic community
responded to the challenge of developing quantum free cyber schemes under the
umbrella of Post Quantum Cryptography. From a cryptographic perspective the
post quantum community turned their attention to developing replacements for,
for example RSA and El Gamal based on hash based, code based, lattice based and
multivariate based algorithms. Symmetric Key cryptography remained unscathed by
both Shor’s algorithm and Grover’s quantum based, search algorithm.
The areas of
quantum research that this group is involved in are:
· Analysis of
multipartite quantum-based systems
· Quantum protocols
and their applications
· Quantum
Cryptography
· Integrating
Quantum Concepts into Cybersecurity
From a classical
perspective the areas that this group is involved in are:
· Post Quantum
Cryptography
· Living in a
quantum free world
· Lightweight
Cryptography for IoT
· Securing the edge
of IoT Networks
· Smart protocols
employing games and blockchains
· Intrusion
detection and countermeasures for attacks on IoT routing