Bryan Ford's Home Page

Ludovic Barman Ph.D. thesis advised by Jean-Pierre Hubaux and Bryan Ford September 17, 2021 Abstract: Most communication systems (e.g., e-mails, instant messengers, VPNs) use encryption to prevent third parties from learning sensitive information.

Eleftherios Kokoris-Kogias, Enis Ceyhun Alp, Linus Gasser, Philipp Jovanovic, Ewa Syta, and Bryan Ford 47th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases (VLDB 2021) Copenhagen, Denmark – August 16-20, 2021 Abstract: Distributed ledgers provide high a…

Talk at IC3 Blockchain Summer Camp July 28, 2021 – Virtual Slides: PDF

Keynote at Internet of Humans Workshop #1 July 27, 2021 – Virtual Slides: PDF

Bryan Ford Appears in Digital Technology and Democratic Theory by Lucy Bernholz, Hélène Landemore, and Rob Reich (editors) published by the University of Chicago Press Abstract While technology is often claimed to be “democratizing”, the technologizing…

AI in Policy?

Talk at Digital Democracy Workshop November 5, 2020 – Virtual Slides: PDF

Bryan Ford November 2020 (first draft) arXiv preprint Abstract: Digital identity seems at first like a prerequisite for digital democracy: how can we ensure “one person, one vote” online without identifying voters?

Talk at IC3 Blockchain Camp July 30, 2020 – Virtual Slides: PDF

Sarah Allen, Srdjan Capkun, Ittay Eyal, Giulia Fanti, Bryan Ford, James Grimmelmann, Ari Juels, Kari Kostiainen, Sarah Meiklejohn, Andrew Miller, Eswar Prasad, Karl Wüst, and Fan Zhang Global Economy & Development Working Paper 140, Brookings Institution,

Ludovic Barman, Italo Dacosta, Mahdi Zamani, Ennan Zhai, Apostolos Pyrgelis, Bryan Ford, Jean-Pierre Hubaux, and Joan Feigenbaum Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium July 13, 2020 Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies Volume 2020, Issue 4.

Bryan Ford, Philipp Jovanovic, and Ewa Syta March 4, 2020 arXiv preprint Abstract: It is commonly held that asynchronous consensus is much more complex, difficult, and costly than partially-synchronous algorithms, especially without using common coins.

Guest lecture at TransformTech January 29, 2020 – Lausanne, Switzerland Slides: PDF

Talk at Caspian Week, World Economic Forum 2020 January 23, 2020 – Davos, Switzerland Slides: PDF

Talk at House of Switzerland, World Economic Forum 2020 January 22, 2020 – Davos, Switzerland Slides: PDF

Talk at Geneva Blockchain Congress 2020 January 20, 2020 – Geneva, Switzerland Slides: PDF

Eleftherios Kokoris Kogias Ph.D. thesis advised by Bryan Ford September 27, 2019 Abstract: One of the core promises of blockchain technology is that of enabling trustworthy data dissemination in a trustless environment.

by Bryan Ford and Rainer Böhme — PDF preprint version available Many blockchain and cryptocurrency fans seem to prefer building and analyzing decentralized systems in a rational or “greedy behavior” failure model, rather than a Byzantine or “arbitrary be…

The Go language appears to be getting slightly closer to supporting generics, with the recent release of a new proposal for generics based on type parameters and contracts.

Kirill Nikitin, Ludovic Barman, Wouter Lueks, Matthew Underwood, Jean-Pierre Hubaux and Bryan Ford EPFL - IC - DEDIS Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium July 2019.

Bryan Ford July 16, 2019 arXiv preprint Abstract: Consensus protocols for asynchronous networks are usually complex and inefficient, leading practical systems to rely on synchronous protocols.

Manu Drijvers, Kasra Edalatnejad, Bryan Ford, Eike Kiltz, Julian Loss, Gregory Neven, and Igors Stepanovs 40th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy May 2019 Abstract: A multi-signature scheme allows a group of signers to collaboratively sign a message,…

Enis Ceyhun Alp, Eleftherios Kokoris-Kogias, Georgia Fragkouli, and Bryan Ford EPFL - IC - DEDIS 17th Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems (HotOS XVII) May 12-15, 2019.

Georgia Fragkouli, Katerina Argyraki, and Bryan Ford EPFL Winner of Applied Networking Research Prize (ANRP) Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies May 4, 2019.

Juan Ramón Troncoso-Pastoriza, Jean Louis Raisaro, Linus Gasser, Bryan Ford, and Jean-Pierre Hubaux AMIA Informatics Summit, March 25—28, 2019.

The absentee ballot fraud in North Carolina shows how current vote-by-mail methods are fundamentally flawed and vulnerable to vote-buying and coercion.

Note: this blog post was a brief sketch of ideas elaborated in a longer paper written later.

Are biometrics good for determining whether a digital identity uniquely represents a real person?

Bryan Ford November 2018 (first draft) arXiv preprint Abstract: The idea of liquid democracy responds to a widely-felt desire to make democracy more "fluid" and continuously participatory.

Blockchain is certainly one of the hot technology topics today.

Jean Louis Raisaro, Juan Ramón Troncoso-Pastoriza, Mickaël Misbach, João Sá Sousa, Sylvain Pradervand, Edoardo Missiaglia, Olivier Michielin, Bryan Ford, and Jean-Pierre Hubaux IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, July 13, 20…

So the U.S.

For the benefit those visiting but not yet familiar with EPFL, Lausanne or other parts of the Lake Geneva Region, I thought I'd write a quick summary of some of my personal favorite places and sights in the area.

Bryan Ford June 2018 (first draft) arXiv preprint Abstract: Classical monetary systems regularly subject the most vulnerable majority of the world's population to debilitating financial shocks, and have manifestly allowed uncontrolled global inequality ov…

Stevens Le Blond, Alejandro Cuevas, Juan Ramón Troncoso-Pastoriza, Philipp Jovanovic, Bryan Ford, and Jean-Pierre Hubaux EPFL Winner of Distinguished Paper Award IEEE Security & Privacy (IEEE S&P) May 22, 2018 Abstract: Humanitarian action, the process of…

Eleftherios Kokoris-Kogias, Philipp Jovanovic, Linus Gasser, Nicolas Gailly, Ewa Syta, and Bryan Ford IEEE Security & Privacy (IEEE S&P) May 22, 2018 Abstract: Designing a secure permissionless distributed ledger (blockchain) that performs on par with cen…

Proof-of-What?

Albert Kwon MIT Henry Corrigan-Gibbs Stanford Srinivas Devadas MIT Bryan Ford EPFL 26th ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (SOSP) October 30, 2017 Abstract: Atom is an anonymous messaging system that protects against traffic-analysis attacks.

A blockchain, or distributed ledger, is a log maintained collectively by a distributed group of participants who agree on and record transactions without relying for security on any single trusted party.

David Froelicher, Patricia Egger, João Sá Sousa, Jean Louis Raisaro, Zhicong Huang, Christian Mouchet, Bryan Ford, and Jean-Pierre Hubaux Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS) July 19, 2017 Abstract: Current solutions for privacy-preserving data…

This blog post is a transcript of my opening remarks on the panel "Restoring Personal Privacy without Compromising National Security" at the 50 Years of the ACM Turing Award Celebration.

Ewa Syta, Philipp Jovanovic, Eleftherios Kokoris Kogias, Nicolas Gailly, Linus Gasser, Ismail Khoffi, Michael J.

Maria Borge, Eleftherios Kokoris-Kogias, Philipp Jovanovic, Linus Gasser, Nicolas Gailly, and Bryan Ford EPFL IEEE Security & Privacy on the Blockchain (IEEE S&B) April 29, 2017 Abstract: Permissionless blockchain-based cryptocurrencies commonly use proof…

XXX intro summary of selfish mining selfish mining as a transparency problem: you get to build on a blockchain head you haven’t published. same as transparency problem in Apple FBI case for example; that’s what CoSi is for. solution: any keyblock you build

As the first widely-deployed cryptocurrency, Bitcoin has proven hugely successful and inspired a blockchain fever (or is it a bubble?).