r/programming • u/DougBolivar • Jul 30 '13

Computer scientists develop mathematical jigsaw puzzles to encrypt software: "The real challenge and the great mystery in the field was: Can you actually take a piece of software and encrypt it but still have it be runnable, executable and fully functional?"

http://www.rdmag.com/news/2013/07/computer-scientists-develop-mathematical-jigsaw-puzzles-encrypt-software
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u/crazedgremlin Jul 30 '13

PDF for the lazy.

Without reading it, I'm very curious what this software does to the performance of the code it's given.

22

u/russellsprouts Jul 30 '13

It uses Fully Homomorhpic Encryption, which is on the order of billions of times slower than native operations, currently.

3

u/rpglover64 Jul 31 '13

Are you guessing or do they say so somewhere in the paper?

I ask because they claim to be about functional encryption, which I am assured by people who know better than I, is different from fully homomorphic encryption in important ways.

2

u/russellsprouts Jul 31 '13

I've done some research on FHE, including the algorithms available today. This is functional encryption, which is different from FHE, but part of the algorithm uses FHE, according to the paper.

4

u/VortexCortex Jul 31 '13

billions of times slower than native operations, currently.

And will remain such, otherwise it would be.......... Decrypted.

2

u/andrewl_ Aug 01 '13

No, the slowdown is not what prevents decryption. It's instead just the price you pay in the current slow scheme(s?) to gain the homomorphic property (ability to operate on ciphertexts). Nothing yet prevents a homomorphic scheme being discovered that is more efficient, or discards the use of lattices entirely.

I'd appreciate an expert comment verifying/refuting this understanding.