Hi everyone,

This Thursday, Samer Seraj, and undergraduate student here at UofT, will be giving a talk on his original research in cryptographic security. In his talk titled “On Diffusion”, Samer will outline the ideas of his solution to an open problem in security posed to him in an undergraduate research course. Spanning more than one year of work, Samer  prepares from his latest results, in conjunction with materials from his earlier talk in Normandy, the awaited conclusion to his research. Samer will finish his talk by proposing 3 open problems to the audience as directions for further research. This talk is accessible to math students in all years of study at UofT.

Time: 4pm – 5pm, Thursday November 7

Location: BA B024 (Basement of Bahen centre)

Speaker: Samer Seraj

Title: On Diffusion

Abstract: We first precisely define the space and structure of cryptographic information. We then proceed to compare two rival definitions of diffusive (scrambling) functions between such spaces, and produce optimal versions of each. The interesting fact is that some use the two definitions interchangeably, but they are quite different. Finally, we propose new directions of research and open problems. The material is from a paper by the speaker, under the supervision of Dr. Kumar Murty.