Threshold Cryptography: Ready for Prime Time?

Abstract: The trend in trust decentralization together with the ever increasing value of digital assets (cryptocurrencies, blockchains, mega data repositories, key (mis)management, intellectual property, privacy, etc.) and the need to protect these assets for secrecy and availability, make threshold cryptography a most relevant technology whose time has come. We need to see more targeted applications as well as software platforms on which to build solutions that take into account real-world considerations such as asynchronous networks, support for diversified architectures, hardware enclaves, and more. Additionally, we need to refresh the set of techniques supporting threshold cryptography with advances in areas such as multi-party computation, quantum-resistant primitives, and blockchain-inspired consensus protocols. In addition to arguing these points, the talk will discuss some recent applications of threshold cryptography in the domain of key and password management, blockchain, and how threshold cryptography can be relevant to the #metoo movement.

(Click the above image to see video on Youtube)