EDUCATION
2015: Ph.D. with a distinction Excellent “Cum laude”
December 2015 Grade Achieved: Excellent Cum laude Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Polytechnic University of Madrid) Thesis Title: Vector Boolean Functions: Applications in Symmetric Cryptography Supervisor: Pedro J. Zufiria
Depto. Matemática Aplicada a las Tecnologías de la Información, ETSIT, UPM
Brief Synopsis of Research:
This thesis develops the theoretical foundations and designs an open collection of C++ classes, called VBF, designed for analyzing vector Boolean functions (functions that map a Boolean vector to another Boolean vector) from a cryptographic perspective. This new implementation uses the NTL library from Victor Shoup, adding new modules which complement the existing ones making VBF better suited for cryptography. The fundamental class representing a vector Boolean function can be initialized in a flexible way via several alternative types of data structures such as Truth Table, Trace Representation, Algebraic Normal Form (ANF) among others. This way, VBF allows the evaluation of the most relevant cryptographic criteria for block and stream ciphers as well as for hash functions: for instance, it provides the nonlinearity, the linearity distance, the algebraic degree, the linear structures, the frequency distribution of the absolute values of the Walsh Spectrum or the Autocorrelation Spectrum, among others. In addition, VBF can perform operations such as equality testing, composition, inversion, sum, direct sum, bricklayering (parallel application of vector Boolean functions as employed in Rijndael cipher), and adding coordinate functions of two vector Boolean functions.
This thesis also illustrates the use of VBF in two practical applications. On the one hand, the most relevant properties of the existing block ciphers have been analysed. On the other hand, by combining VBF with optimization algorithms, new Boolean functions have been designed which have the best known cryptographic properties up-to-date.
2005-2006: Diploma of Advanced Studies
October 2005 - July 2006
Depto. Matemática Aplicada a las Tecnologías de la Información, ETSIT, UPM
Applied Mathematics
2000: Curso de Infraestructuras comunes de telecomunicación (ICT)
Dates: May 4, 2000
Colegio Oficial de Ingenieros de Telecomunicación (COIT), Madrid, Spain
Design of telecommunication infrastructures
1992-1998: Master of Science in Telecommunication Engineering
ETSIT, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM)
Title: Telecommunication Engineer Grade Achieved: Sobresaliente
The Master in Telecommunication Engineering (Master Universitario en Ingeniería de Telecomunicación) from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid has been accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, http://www.abet.org.