Multi-Party Computation (MPC)
In this talk we will look at the protocol that allows two parties
who know their locations on a Euclidean plane to check whether they
are within distance R of each other or not. A distinguishing feature
of this protocol is that it does not require the parties to
communicate with each other directly and be online at the same
time. We introduce a pair of servers to which one client may submit
their data and go offline with the other client coming online later,
finishing the protocol and fetching the matching result.
We build the protocols by combining existing off-the-shelf
Cryptographic techniques. Interestingly, the protocol has better
parameters (w.r.t. performance and security) than some of the
hand-crafted protocols. So the importance of our protocol is in
showing what can be achieved in this field “for free” using the
generic techniques, and setting the bar for anyone who tries to make
a “smarter” protocol for this problem in the future.
During the talk we will have an intro to how Multi-Party Computation
protocols work, then show how our CatNap is built from them, and
finally discuss the practical implications of this work.