Oana Ciobotaru

oana@web3.foundation

I am a Cryptography Researcher at Web3 Foundation.

Current research interests

• Zero-knowledge proofs systems (with a focus on ZK-SNARKS)

• Efficient algorithms

• Provable security

Short Bio

I hold a Mathematics and Computer Science degree from University of Bucharest, Romania and Master’s degree and PhD degree in Computer Science from Saarland University, Germany in a joint programme with Max Planck Institute for Computer Science, Germany. I have completed my PhD degree in the area of Rational Cryptography, a research field at the intersection of Cryptography and Game Theory, under the supervision of Prof. Michael Backes. My PhD thesis is titled “Rational Cryptography: Novel Constructions, Automated Verification and Unified Definitions”. I have completed my Master’s degree in Cryptography under the supervision of Prof. Michael Backes and Prof. Dominique Unruh. My Master’s thesis is titled “Efficient Long-term Secure Universally Composable Commitments”. Before joining Web3 Foundation, I have held roles in academia and in industry in Germany, Spain and United Kingdom.

Selected Publications

• Oana Ciobotaru. On the (Non-)Equivalence of UC Security Notions. In 6th International Conference on Provable Security (ProvSec 2012). Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 104-124. Springer, 2012.

• Michael Backes, Oana Ciobotaru and Anton Krohmer. RatFish: A File Sharing Protocol Provably Secure Against Rational Users. In 15th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS 2010). Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 607-625. Springer, 2010.

• Ariel Gabizon, Zachary J. Williamson, Oana Ciobotaru. PLONK: Permutations over Lagrange-bases for Oecumenical Noninteractive arguments of Knowledge, IACR ePrint, 2019