Indistinguishability Obfuscation from Well Studied Assumptions

Software obfuscation transforms source code to render it unintelligible while preserving functionality underpinned by firm mathematical foundations. By constructing indistinguishability obfuscation from well-studied hardness conjectures, the work advances cryptographic goals including functional encryption and broadens software security approaches. Software obfuscation is used in cryptography to transform source code to make it unintelligible without altering what it computes. As a software security mechanism, it is essential that software obfuscation have a firm mathematical foundation. The research described in this book, for which the author won the ACM Dissertation Award, establishes the feasibility of mathematically rigorous software obfuscation from well-studied hardness conjectures. The mathematical object that the author constructs, indistinguishability obfuscation, is considered a theoretical "master tool" in the context of cryptography: not only in helping to achieve long-desired cryptographic goals such as functional encryption, but also in expanding the scope of the field of cryptography itself. For example, indistinguishability obfuscation aids in goals related to software security that were previously entirely in the domain of software engineering.