PROgramming Computation on EncryptEd Data

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is soliciting proposals for innovative research in programming computation on encrypted data. The proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems. Specifically excluded is research that results primarily in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice. The goal of the PROCEED research effort is to develop practical methods for computation on encrypted data without decrypting the data and to develop modern programming languages to describe these computations. PROCEED is a comprehensive research effort with six primary research thrusts outlined in the DARPA-BAA-10-81. This Research Announcement (RA) solicits interested participants to submit research proposals for the discovery and development of new mathematical foundations for efficient computation on encrypted data via fully homomorphic encryption. [Rivest78, Gentry09, Gentry10, Smart10] Fully homomorphic cryptosystems have the following properties: 1. E(x + y) = E(x) + E(y) 2. E(x * y) = E(x) * E(y) 3. The ciphertext size is independent of the number of additions and multiplications. Other research to support computation on encrypted data should be proposed via the DARPA-BAA-10-81. This dual track research structure is designed to maximize the participation in the highest-risk research area, the development of the mathematical foundations for fully homomorphic encryption, while minimizing the overall technical risk to the program.