Cryptography

Motivation

Since the advent of public key cryptography, about twenty-five years ago, the field has been developing very rapidly and there is an increasing number of scientific conferences. However, most of these meetings have a broad focus, and due to a growing interest by practitioners, the number of attendees which are not experts gets larger. As a result, it becomes difficult to discuss the details of the advancement of the field, as well as to identify promising innovative trends.

The aim of the seminar is to provide an opportunity for key cryptologists to meet, to interact, to focus on the scientific foundation of cryptography, to spot the emerging new areas, and to work on them. Applications will be covered but the emphasis will be on the conceptual framework that allows the use of appropriate models, amenable to mathematical reasoning.

The following is a non-exhaustive list of topics that will be discussed during the seminar:

• provable security of encryption and signature schemes
• multiparty cryptography
• newly emerging methods for designing cryptosystems
• applications (e-voting, protection of content, etc.)

Earlier cryptography seminars at Dagstuhl were held in the fall of 1992 and 1997. Similar workshops were also held at Luminy, France, and Monte-Verita, Switzerland. The present seminar should continue this tradition, with renewed topics.