FHE Development Ecosystem: Tools, Compilers & Challenges

# Abstract

Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) allows a third party to perform arbitrary computations on encrypted data, learning neither the inputs nor the computation results. Hence, it provides protection in situations where computations are carried out by an untrusted party. This powerful concept was first conceived by Rivest et al. in the 1970s. However, it remained unrealized until Craig Gentry presented the first feasible FHE scheme in 2009. Since then, FHE has gone from theoretical breakthrough to practical deployment. However, developing FHE systems remains complex, requiring expert knowledge.

In this talk, I walk through the inherent engineering challenges in developing FHE applications and discuss how tools like compilers that translate between standard programs and FHE implementations can step in to address some of these complexities. I will discuss recent work in this space and, using different case study applications that represent common aspects of FHE applications, highlight where barriers to entry have been successfully lowered and where they still remain. I will conclude by showing examples of what non-expert developers can achieve today and outline future directions for FHE compiler development.

# Bio
Alexander Viand is a doctoral student & research assistant in the Applied Cryptography Group at ETH Zürich and a member of the Privacy Preserving Systems Lab. He's received both his MSc and BSc in Computer Science from ETH Zürich. His interests include usable security and privacy, privacy enhancing technologies, and the interactions between these technologies and society. In his research, he works with secure computation technologies including Fully Homomorphic Encryption, Secure Multi-Party Computation and Zero-Knowledge Proofs, trying to make these techniques more accessible to non-experts by developing new systems, tools and abstractions.