Colloquium
Speaker: Jonathan Katz (UMD)
Title: On the Nature of Mathematical Proofs: A Cryptographic Perspective
Abstract: Beginning in the mid-'80s, complexity theorists began radically revising the notion of what (mathematical) proof might entail, introducing and extending the ideas of using both randomness and interaction as part of the proof-verification process. Cryptographers took this one step further with the idea of *zero-knowledge proofs*, which are supposed to reveal "no information" beyond the validity of the theorem being proven.
We give an introductory survey of these fundamental and now-classical concepts, and conclude with a brief discussion of current research exploring their applications and extensions to the settings of secure distributed computation and verifiable outsourcing.
Bio: Jonathan Katz is a professor of computer science at the University of Maryland, and director of the Maryland Cybersecurity Center. He received an undergraduate degree in mathematics from MIT, and a PhD in computer science from Columbia University. His research interests lie broadly in the fields of cryptography, privacy, and science of cybersecurity, and he is a co-author of the widely used textbook "Introduction to Modern Cryptography." Katz was a member of the DARPA Computer Science Study Group from 2009-2010, and received a Humboldt Research Award in 2015. He currently serves on the steering committee for the IEEE cybersecurity initiative, as well as the State of Maryland Cybersecurity Council.