Six papers accepted at top conference ACM CCS

Two papers from the group of CROSSING-PI Prof. Sebastian Faust (Applied Cryptography) have been accepted:

General State Channel Networks
Stefan Dziembowski, Sebastian Faust and Kristina Hostakova
In: 25th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2018

An extension of virtual payment networks to cryptocurrencies are so-called state-channel networks. In addition to simple virtual off-chain payments, they enable the execution of complex smart contracts in dicrect channels and channel networks. In this work, we give a first full specification for general state channel networks. Moreover, we provide formal security definitions and develop security proofs showing that our construction satisfies security against powerful adversaries.

FairSwap: How to fairly exchange digital goods
Stefan Dziembowski, Lisa Eckey and Sebastian Faust
In: 25th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2018

In this paper we introduce FairSwap – a new protocol for a fair exchange of digital goods over smart contracts. Our solution has two distinctive features that make it particularly interesting for large files: the cost of running the smart contract on the blockchain is minimal, and instead of expensive cryptographic tools such as zero-knowledge proofs, simple hashing techniques are sufficient.

A paper from the groups ENCRYPTO of CROSSING-PI Prof. Thomas Schneider and SecEng of CROSSING-PI Prof. Stefan Katzenbeisser has been accepted:

HyCC: Compilation of Hybrid Protocols for Practical Secure Computation
Niklas Büscher, Daniel Demmler, Stefan Katzenbeisser, David Kretzmer, Thomas Schneider.
In: 25th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS)

HyCC is a compiler that automatically generates privacy-preserving multi-party computations from a high-level programming language (a subset of ANSI C). HyCC is the first compiler that combines multiple cryptographic protocols. This allows developers without knowledge in cryptography to develop secure and efficient software.

Three papers from CROSSING PIs Prof. Michael Waidner and Dr. Haya Shulman have been accepted:

Domain Validation ++ for MitM-Resilient PKI
Markus Brand, Tianxiang Dai, Amit Klein, Haya Shulman, Michael Waidner
In: 25th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ACM CCS), 2018

The security of Internet-based applications fundamentally relies on the trustworthiness of Certificate Authorities (CAs). We practically demonstrate for the first time that even a very weak offpath attacker can subvert the trustworthiness of popular commercially used CAs. We propose countermeasures to mitigate our attacks.

Off-path Attacks Against PKI
Tianxiang Dai, Haya Shulman, Michael Waidner
In: 25th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ACM CCS), 2018

Removing the Bottleneck for Practical 2PC
Kris Shrishak, Haya Shulman, Michael Waidner
In: 25th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ACM CCS), 2018

ACM CCS 2018 is taking place October 15-19 in Toronto, Canada.