Verifiable computation and fully homomorphic encryption

• Grant number: 25/18160-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: October 01, 2025
• End date: July 31, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Computer Science - Theory of Computation
• Principal Investigator: Hilder Vitor Lima Pereira
• Grantee: Vanessa Carvalho Lima
• Host Institution: Instituto de Computação (IC). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 23/12755-8 - Homomorphic encryption and computation on encrypted data, AP.JP

Abstract

Fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) is the ideal tool when a client wants to dispatch computation to a third party, the server, without revealing the data, as it allows the server to perform computation on the encrypted data, thus maintaining the client's security.However, the correctness of the computation is also a concern. In other words, the client has a function f in mind, sends x encrypted to the server, and wants not only for x to remain secret, but also for the ciphertext returned by the server to encrypt f(x).It is typically argued that in commercial applications, servers have no interest in cheating and calculating another function instead of $f$,since they could be discovered and have their reputations damaged. Therefore, it is common to assume that the server follows the protocol properly, that is, calculates f(x) as expected.However, in many scenarios, it is desirable for the client to have some way of ensuring that the result is correct, without having to assume that the server follows the protocol. To achieve this, recent works have attempted to combine verifiable computation (VC) protocols with FHE to achieve verifiable computation on encrypted data.This master's project aims to improve the state of the art in CV with FHE, researching new ways to combine the two, new constructions, and applications.