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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: EP/I03126X/1
Title: COED: Computing on Encrypted Data
Principal Investigator: Smart, Professor N
Other Investigators:
Page, Dr D
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department: Computer Science
Organisation: University of Bristol
Scheme: Standard Research
Starts: 03 October 2011 Ends: 02 October 2015 Value (£): 946,576
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Fundamentals of Computing
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Information Technologies
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Panel DatePanel NameOutcome
15 Mar 2011 EPSRC ICT Responsive Mode - Mar 2011 Announced
Summary on Grant Application Form
Whilst encrypting data keeps data secret, a major problem occurs when one wants to process encrypted data. Currently this involves performing the decryption, then performing a calculation and then re-encrypting the data. Which is costly, and assumes the person carrying out the computation can be trusted with the data. Consider the of an outsourced database in more detail. An owner of some data currently maintains their own database system. The idea behind cloud services is to enable the database owner to delegate the storage of the databased to someone else. To do this they pay a third party provider to host it for them. But now they need to trust this third party to maintain the privacy of the data. One way around this problem would be for the data to be encrypted before the owner passes it over to the provider. However, now it would seem hard for the data owner to search and query the database (without downloading it from the third party, hence invalidating the whole motivation for outsourcing).Theoretically we know of much more secure techniques. Namely, we can compute on the encrypted data without needing to perform decryptions. There are a number of approaches to this problem, from fully-homomorphic encryption through to multi-party computation. Indeed the the last couple of years have seen amazing advances being made in these areas. This project aims to take these theoretical approaches and examine more closely the barriers to true practicality. This will be done using a combination of theoretical and practical expertise which is unique to the Cryptography group in Bristol.
Key Findings
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Further Information:  
Organisation Website: http://www.bris.ac.uk