Bar-Ilan Winter School on MPC
A nice series of introductory talks that cover a handful of important MPC protocols. The later videos give an overview of some at-the-time recent papers in the space (from 2015).
Cryptography Resources
I spent a lot of my first year in grad school trying to pick up the basics in different areas of cryptography. These are the introductory materials in each topic that helped me the most.
Multi-Party Computation
A Pragmatic Introduction to Secure Multi-Party Computation
This book gives a high-level introduction to various common MPC protocols and techniques. It’s very digestible and covers a lot more protocols than the Bar-Ilan winter school videos. There are no security proofs though, unfortunately.
How to Simulate It
Simulation proofs are used in many areas of cryptography, but they’re especially critical for MPC. This paper helped me wrap my head around what simulation-based definitions actually mean, why they’re used, and how the proofs work.
Universal Composability
Ran Canetti Lectures
A high-level introduction to universal composability from the UC oracle himself. Watch before reading Ran’s UC Paper, which as far as I know is the only complete description of the UC framework.
Lattice-Based Cryptography
Bar-Ilan Winter School on Lattice-Based Cryptography
A series of talks from various speakers. Starts from the basics and covers some fundamental constructions, including a lot of time spent on FHE.
Chris Peikert Course Notes
A set of typed lecture notes and homeworks from a class Chris Peikert teaches. The lecture notes are more detailed than his survey (see below), and there’s some good exercises in the homeworks.
A Decade of Lattice Cryptography
I think this is the most complete written introduction to lattice based crypto out there. It’s a nice overview of common lattice problems and cryptographic constructions.
Differential Privacy
Gautam Kamath Lectures and Course Notes
A semester’s worth of lectures on differential privacy. There’s full lecture videos, problem sets, and typed notes. So good.
Contextualizing Cryptography
The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work
Phillip Rogaway powerfully argues that cryptographers have a duty to confront the social and political implications of our work. Alternatively, watch the talk version.
Crypto for the People
A talk by Seny Kamara that lays out a vision for how cryptographic research can better serve marginalized groups.
What Happened to the Crypto Dream?
A short essay that discusses why much of the cryptographic research that enhances privacy has failed to make its way into the real world. Also read part 2 here.
Defend Dissent: Digital Suppression and Cryptographic Defense of Social Movements
A textbook that covers the history and present of digital surveillance and cryptography in US activist movements.