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Evervault Papers

Crypto means cryptography

The most important cryptography papers spanning the past, present, and future of cryptosystems & cryptology.

Non-Malleable Cryptography
Non-Malleable Cryptography

Danny Dolev, Cynthia Dwork, & Moni Naor

On the (Im)possibility of Obfuscating Programs
On the (Im)possibility of Obfuscating Programs

Boaz Barak, Oded Goldreich, Rusell Impagliazzo, Steven Rudich, Amit Sahai, Salil Vadhan, & Ke Yang

Computer Systems Established, Maintained and Trusted by Mutually Suspicious Groups
Computer Systems Established, Maintained and Trusted by Mutually Suspicious Groups

David L. Chaum

Computer Systems Established, Maintained and Trusted by Mutually Suspicious Groups

Computer Systems Established, Maintained and Trusted by Mutually Suspicious Groups

David L. Chaum — Published April 1982

This paper is the first known proposal for a blockchain protocol.

Chaum describes the design of a distributed computer system that can be established, maintained, and trusted by mutually suspicious groups.

It is a public record-keeping system with group membership consistency and private transaction computations that protects individual privacy through physical security.

The building blocks of this system include physically-secure “vaults”, existing cryptographic primitives (symmetric and asymmetric encryption, cryptographic hash functions, digital signatures), and a new primitive introduced by Chaum—threshold secret sharing, i.e. “where some threshold of sub-partial keys are sufficient to reconstruct the original partial key from which the sub-partials were originally formed”.

For more on the history of blockchain technologies, consider On the Origins and Variations of Blockchain Technologies.

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A Digital Signature Based on a Conventional Encryption Function
A Digital Signature Based on a Conventional Encryption Function

Ralph C. Merkle

The Knowledge Complexity of Interactive Proof-Systems
The Knowledge Complexity of Interactive Proof-Systems

Shafi Goldwasser, Silvio Micali, & Charles Rackoffero

Minimal Key Lengths for Symmetric Ciphers to Provide Adequate Commercial Security
Minimal Key Lengths for Symmetric Ciphers to Provide Adequate Commercial Security

Matt Blaze, Whit eld Diffie, Ronald L. Rivest, Bruce Schneier, Tsutomu Shimomura, Eric Thompson, & Michael Wiener

CryptDB: Protecting Confidentiality with Encrypted Query Processing
CryptDB: Protecting Confidentiality with Encrypted Query Processing

Raluca Ada Popa, Catherine M. S. Redfield, Nickolai Zeldovich, & Hari Balakrishnan

Protocols for Secure Computations
Protocols for Secure Computations

Andrew C. Yao

Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System

Satoshi Nakamoto

A fully homomorphic encryption scheme
A fully homomorphic encryption scheme

Craig Gentry

On Data Banks and Privacy Homomorphisms
On Data Banks and Privacy Homomorphisms

Ronald L. Rivest, Len Adleman, & Michael L. Dertouzos

A fast quantum mechanical algorithm for database search
A fast quantum mechanical algorithm for database search

Lov K. Grover

Polynomial-Time Algorithms for Prime Factorization and Discrete Logarithms on a Quantum Computer
Polynomial-Time Algorithms for Prime Factorization and Discrete Logarithms on a Quantum Computer

Peter Shor

Use of Elliptic Curves in Cryptography
Use of Elliptic Curves in Cryptography

Victor Miller

Elliptic Curve Cryptosystems
Elliptic Curve Cryptosystems

Neal Koblitz

A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public Key Cryptosystems
A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public Key Cryptosystems

Ronald L. Rivest, Adi Shamir, & Len Adleman

New Directions in Cryptography
New Directions in Cryptography

Whitfield Diffie & Martin E. Hellman

Cramming more components onto integrated circuits
Cramming more components onto integrated circuits

Gordon Moore

A Mathematical Theory of Cryptography
A Mathematical Theory of Cryptography

Claude E. Shannon

La Cryptographie Militaire
La Cryptographie Militaire

Auguste Kerckhoffs