Michele Orrù
I believe that privacy is a human right and that cryptography can help foster an open society. My research seeks to build authentication mechanisms that preserve user anonymity. I work on:
- improving efficiency and security of zero-knowledge proofs,
- lightweight anonymous credential systems,
- confidential transactions.
In the past, I contributed to Python, Debian, and Tor. I co-designed Globaleaks, an open-source whistleblowing platform now translated in more than 90 languages and used by more than 300 organizations, and co-authored the cryptography behind Google’s Trust Tokens. Sometimes, I help NGOs on matters of digital security.
I am a chargé de recherche (Assistant Professor) at CNRS. Previously, I have been at UC Berkeley as research scholar. I got my PhD from École Normale Supérieure, and my MSc in math from the University of Trento. I attended the Recurse Center in Fall 2020 (W2’20).
Publications
- Oblivious issuance of proofs
[ePrint],
with S. Tessaro, G. Zaverucha, C. Zhu. CRYPTO 2024. - zk-Bench: A Toolset for Comparative Evaluation and Performance Benchmarking of SNARKs
[ePrint],
with J. Ernstberger, S. Chaliasos, G. Kadianakis, S. Steinhorst, P. Jovanovic, A. Gervais, B. Livshits. SCN 2024. - Non-interactive Mimblewimble transactions, revisited
[ePrint],
with G. Fuchsbauer. ASIACRYPT 2022. - Gemini: an elastic proof system for diverse environments
[ePrint]
[Talk]
[Code],
with J. Bootle, A. Chiesa, Y. Hu. EUROCRYPT 2022. - A proposal for the standardization of ∑-protocols
[PDF]
[Talk],
with S. Krenn. 4th ZKProof Workshop. - On the (in)security of ROS
[ePrint]
[Talk],
with F. Benhamouda, T. Lepoint, J. Loss, M. Raykova. EUROCRYPT 2021.Best paper award! Invited to the Journal of Cryptology. - Efficient Anonymous Tokens with Private Metadata Bit
[ePrint]
[Talk]
[Code],
with B. Kreuter, T. Lepoint, M. Raykova. CRYPTO 2020. - Aggregate cash systems: A cryptographic investigation of Mimblewimble
[ePrint]
[Talk],
with G. Fuchsbauer, Y. Seurin. EUROCRYPT 2019. - Lattice-Based zk-SNARKs from SSPs
[ePrint]
[Talk]
[Code],
with R. Gennaro, M. Minelli, A. Niţulescu. ACM CCS 2018. - Non-Interactive Zaps of Knowledge
[ePrint],
with G. Fuchsbauer. ACNS 2018.Best student paper! - Homomorphic Secret Sharing: Optimizations and Applications
[ePrint],
with E. Boyle, G. Couteau, N. Gilboa, Y. Ishai. ACM CCS 2017. - Actively Secure 1-out-of-N OT Extension with Application to Private Set Intersection
[ePrint],
with E. Orsini, P. Scholl. CT-RSA 2017.
Code
I am actively involved in maintaining the arkworks.rs algebra crate. My recent contributions include:
- zka.lc: Think of this as a calculator for the concrete performance of public-key cryptography operations. You add items to your shopping list and zkalc gives you the total time at the checkout.
- tinybear: proving knowledge an AES-encrypted message using Schnorr proofs in 30 milliseconds and 80KB.
- nimue: a dedicated library for transforming interactive cryptographic protocols into non-interactive ones (the Fiat-Shamir transform), streamlining security processes.