CS&E Profile: Nick Hopper

Cryptography, Computer Security, Algorithms and Complexity.

Ph.D. 2004, Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University.

B.A. 1999, Computer Science and Mathematics, University of Minnesota, Morris.

About

Associate Professor Hopper specializes in Cryptography and Computer Security. He's a member of the International Association for Cryptographic Research. He received the National Science Foundation's (NSF) CAREER award in 2006.  

Research

My general interests are in cryptography, computer & network security, and
theoretical computer science. The focus of my research is on proving the security of computer systems and protocols. The central questions in this research are:

• What should it mean for a computer system to be secure? In order to prove the security of a system or protocol we must first establish formal definitions of security.
• What can we prove about the security of current systems and protocols? Given a formal security goal, it is sometimes possible to prove that existing protocols satisfy this definition or show that they do not.
• How can we construct efficient systems with provable security properties? If we cannot prove the security of an existing protocol or system, a natural alternative is to construct a system so that the proof of security is tractable.