MPC for MPC: Secure Computation on a Massively Parallel Computing Architecture

Massively Parallel Computation (MPC) is a model of computation widely believed to best capture realistic parallel computing architectures such as large-scale MapReduce and Hadoop clusters. Motivated by the fact that many data analytics tasks performed on these platforms involve sensitive user data, we initiate the theoretical exploration of how to leverage MPC architectures to enable efficient, privacy-preserving computation over massive data. Clearly if a computation task does not lend itself to an efficient implementation on MPC even without security, then we cannot hope to compute it efficiently on MPC with security. We show, on the other hand, that any task that can be efficiently computed on MPC can also be securely computed with comparable efficiency. Specifically, we show the following results: - any MPC algorithm can be compiled to a communication-oblivious counterpart while asymptotically preserving its round and space complexity, where communication-obliviousness ensures that any network intermediary observing the communication patterns learn no information about the secret inputs; - assuming the existence of Fully Homomorphic Encryption with a suitable notion of compactness and other standard cryptographic assumptions, any MPC algorithm can be compiled to a secure counterpart that defends against an adversary who controls not only intermediate network routers but additionally up to 1/3 - ? fraction of machines (for an arbitrarily small constant ?) - moreover, this compilation preserves the round complexity tightly, and preserves the space complexity upto a multiplicative security parameter related blowup. As an initial exploration of this important direction, our work suggests new definitions and proposes novel protocols that blend algorithmic and cryptographic techniques

Fabrication of nanometer single crystal metallic CoSi2 structures on Si

Amorphous Co:Si (1:2 ratio) films are electron gun-evaporated on clean Si(111), such as in a molecular beam epitaxy system. These layers are then crystallized selectively with a focused electron beam to form very small crystalline Co/Si2 regions in an amorphous matrix. Finally, the amorphous regions are etched away selectively using plasma or chemical techniques

Echoes in star quasinormal modes using an alternative finite difference method

In this work, the echoes in quasinormal modes of axial gravitational perturbations in the compact star are investigated. We propose an alternative scheme of the finite difference method implemented in two coordinate systems, where the initial conditions are placed on the axis of the tortoise coordinate with appropriate boundary conditions that fully respect the causality. The scheme is then used to study the temporal profiles of the quasinormal oscillations in the Schwarzschild black hole and the uniform density stars. When presented in a two-dimensional evolution profile, the resulting ringdown waveforms in the black hole metric are split into the reflected and transmitted waves as the initial perturbations evolve and collide with the peak of the effective potential. On the other hand, for compact stars, quasinormal oscillations might be characterized by echoes. Consistent with the causality arguments, the phenomenon is produced by the gravitational waves bouncing between the divergent potential at the star's center and the peak of the effective potential. The implications of the present study are also discussed