Monday / CS Distinguished Lecture
November 4th / 12:00 PM
Hybrid / Mudd 3514

Speaker
Dr. Kristin Lauter, FAIR Labs North America

Talk Title
Cryptography in the "Post-AI" Era: Machine Learning attacks on Post-Quantum Cryptography

Abstract
AI is taking off and we could say we are living in “the AI Era”. Progress in AI today is based on mathematics and statistics under the covers of machine learning models. This talk will explain at a high level how these techniques work, and some important applications. In particular, I will explain recent work on AI4Crypto, where we train AI models to attack Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) schemes based on lattices. Understanding the concrete security of these standardized PQC schemes is important for the future of e-commerce and internet security. So in addition to living in a Post-Quantum era, we can say we are living in a “Post-AI” era.

Biography

"Dr. Kristin Lauter is Senior Director of FAIR Labs North America (2022—present), based in Seattle. Her current research areas are AI4Crypto and Private AI. She joined FAIR (Facebook AI Research) in 2021, after 22 years at Microsoft Research (MSR). At MSR she was Partner Research Manager on the senior leadership team of MSR Redmond. Before joining Microsoft in 1999, she was Hildebrandt Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the University of Michigan (1996-1999). She is an Affiliate Professor of Mathematics at the University of Washington (2008—present). She received all her advanced degrees from the University of Chicago, BA (1990), MS (1991), PhD (1996) in Mathematics. She is best known for her work on Elliptic Curve Cryptography, Supersingular Isogeny Graphs in Cryptography, Homomorphic Encryption (SEALcrypto.org), Private AI, and AI4Crypto. She served as President of the Association for Women in Mathematics from 2015-2017 and on the Council of the American Mathematical Society from 2014-2017.

Lauter has been recognized for her mathematical research and leadership with numerous awards: the Selfridge Prize in Computational Number Theory (2008), as an elected Fellow of the American Mathematical Society (2015), Fellow of the Association for Women in Mathematics (2017), Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) in 2020, and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2020). In 2021, Lauter was elected as an honorary member of the Royal Spanish Mathematical Society (RSME). She was awarded the Pólya Lectureship for the Mathematical Association of America (2018–2020) and the SIAM Block Community Prize Lecturer in 2022. She gave a TED talk on Private AI at Congreso Futuro in 2020 and on AI4Crypto in 2023."

Research/Interest Areas:
AI Privacy and Security, AI for Math, Cryptography, Number Theory

---
Zoom: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/91596979165
Panopto: https://northwestern.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=8e7fb621-a6a1-4802-ae58-b2140108a4a6
DEI Minute: Disability and Accessibility https://tinyurl.com/cspac-dei-minute