Homomorphic Encryption in R

By: Alexander Mueller

Homomorphic encryption is a way of concealing data that allows you to do computations on encrypted data and get the "right" answer. If you have an algorithm that requires plaintext input to answer a particular question, there is a special algorithm you can run on the encrypted ciphertext to produce a ciphertext "answer" that will be the correct plaintext answer if and when you decrypt it. In this presentation, I will talk a bit about this technology and its recent progress before outlining some of the libraries that have appeared for applying it in R. We'll then look at some basic analyses with a twist: they will be done entirely on data encrypted with these new tools, and we'll work exclusively with encrypted data before decrypting our answers at the end.

The meetup will be in The Showroom in the CIC building at 20 South Sarah Street, St. Louis, MO 63108. The building entrance is at the corner of Forest Park Avenue and Sarah Street. You can find directions at http://stl.cic.us/directions/ (CIC@CET).

We will meet for snacks, set-up, and conversation at 6:00PM. The presentation will start at 6:30PM and will be about 60 minutes long.