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Project Overview

Project Code: Filled in by TUM Global & Alumni Office

Project name:

Private Information Retrieval

TUM Department:

CIT - Electrical and Computer Engineering

TUM Chair / Institute:

Chair of Communications Engineering

Research area:

Security and Privacy

Student background:

Computer EngineeringComputer ScienceComputer Science/ InformaticsElectrical EngineeringMathematics

Further disciplines:

Participation also possible online only:

Planned project location:

Institute for Communications Engineering

Technical University of Munich
Theresienstrasse 90, Building N4
80333 München

Project Supervisor - Contact Details


Title:

Given name:

Gökberk

Family name:

Erdogan

E-mail:

gokberk.erdogan@tum.de

Phone:

+491797627645

Additional Project Supervisor - Contact Details


Title:

Given name:

Sebastian

Family name:

Bitzer

E-mail:

sebastian.bitzer@tum.de

Phone:

Additional Project Supervisor - Contact Details


Title:

Given name:

Emma

Family name:

Munisamy

E-mail:

emma.munisamy@tum.de

Phone:

Project Description


Project description:

Private Information Retrieval at TUM

Private Information Retrieval (PIR) protocols enable users to query a database without revealing which data item is requested. This is crucial in preserving privacy in many modern applications.

Information-theoretic PIR schemes provide strong privacy guarantees even against adversaries with unlimited computational power, but they require multiple non-colluding servers. Single-server PIR, in contrast, relies on computational assumptions—hardness assumptions that are believed to be infeasible for efficient algorithms, including quantum computers.

At the Institute for Coding and Cryptography at TUM, we focus on PIR constructions based on various hardness assumptions, such as lattice-based assumptions like Learning with Errors (LWE) and code-based assumptions such as the syndrome decoding problem (SDP).

What Can You Do in This Project?

Most existing single-server PIR schemes rely on assumptions other than code-based ones. In this project, you will study and compare such schemes, understand their security and efficiency, and explore how to adapt their techniques to construct PIR schemes based on code-based assumptions.

Possible tasks include:

Surveying state-of-the-art PIR protocols beyond code-based assumptions

Analyzing and comparing their security and performance

Designing and implementing code-based PIR protocols inspired by these approaches

The exact focus will be tailored to your interests and background.

Join us in Munich to contribute to advancing privacy-preserving cryptographic protocols based on code-based hardness assumptions!

Working hours per week planned:

35

Prerequisites


Required study level minimum (at time of TUM PREP project start):

2 years of bachelor studies completed

Subject related:

Linear algebra

Other:

Interest in Cryptography

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