Anonymous communication systems protect users from surveillance and censorship, but practical deployments often require mechanisms to control who can participate and what information they can access. This creates a fundamental tension between anonymity, access control, and accountability. This talk provides an overview of authorized anonymous communication systems, which aim to reconcile these competing goals. We will discuss the key challenges, survey the cryptographic techniques used to address them, and highlight recent advances that enable efficient authorization, revocation, and auditing without compromising user privacy. The talk will conclude with our recent work on Authorized Anonymous Communication Systems.
Bio: I am an Assistant Professor at the Computer Science and Engineering Department of IIT Kanpur. I did my Ph.D. at Indiana University Bloomington. After my Ph.D., I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Waterloo in the CrySP group for two years. In my research, I build data-leak-proof systems. In creating such data-leak-proof systems, I develop cryptographic primitives and tools that have applications beyond the particular system.
