Brief Biography

I studied mathematics as an undergrad at Boston University. Continuing at Harvard, I completed my Ph.D. in 1999. Concurrent with these studies, starting in 1989, I worked as a consultant and software engineer on a variety of projects, many involving quantitative analysis in the finance industry. After completing my degree, I spent some time doing some interesting international travel, and also became interested in cryptography.   In 2000, I joined RSA Laboratories where I pursued research topics in cryptography and data security. In 2007 I joined the mapping department at Akamai.
This webpage is to post some papers I wrote while working in cryptography research.

Journal Paper

• Elliptic Fibers over non-Perfect Residue Fields, Journal of Number Theory, Volume 104, Issue 1, January 2004, Pages 75-99 Postscript / PDF

Conference Papers

• Johannes Buchmann, Erik Dahmen, Michael Szydlo: Hash-based Digital Signature Schemes
  
• John G. Brainard, Ari Juels, Ronald L. Rivest, Michael Szydlo, Moti Yung: Fourth-factor authentication: somebody you know. ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security 2006: 168-178 PDF
  
• Michael Szydlo, Yiqun Lisa Yin: Collision-Resistant Usage of MD5 and SHA-1 Via Message Preprocessing. CT-RSA 2006: 99-114 PDF
  
• Michael Szydlo: A Note on Chosen-Basis Decisional Diffie-Hellman Assumptions. Financial Cryptography 2006: 166-170 webarchive
  
• Richard Clayton, Drew Dean, Markus Jakobsson, Steven Myers, Stuart G. Stubblebine, Michael Szydlo: A Chat at the Old Phishin' Hole. Financial Cryptography 2005: 88
  
• Michael Szydlo: Risk Assurance for Hedge Funds Using Zero Knowledge Proofs. Financial Cryptography 2005: 156-171 PDF
  
• Steve Bono, Matthew Green, Adam Stubblefield, Ari Juels, Aviel D. Rubin, Michael Szydlo: Security Analysis of a Cryptographically-Enabled RFID Device. USENIX Security 2005 PDF
  
• Proofs for Two-Server Password Authentication, RSA Cryptographers Track '05, Postscript PDF
  
• A Method to Solve Cyclotomic Norm Equations f*f_rev, ANTS '04, Postscript PDF
  
• Merkle Tree Traversal in Log Space and Time, Eurocrypt '04, Postscript PDF
  Preprint version- 2003 - (more efficient, but also more complicated algorithm) Postscript PDF
  
• The Blocker Tag: Selective Blocking of RFID Tags for Consumer Privacy., with Ari Juels and Ronald Rivest, ACM-CCS '03 Postscript / PDF
  
• Nightingale: A New Two-Server Approach for Authentication with Short Secrets , with John Brainard, Ari Juels, and Burt Kaliski. USENIX '03. Postscript / PDF
  
• Hypercubic Lattice Reduction and Analysis of GGH and NTRUSign Signatures, Eurocrypt '03, Postscript / PDF
  
• Fractal Merkle Tree Representation and Traversal , with Markus Jakobsson, Tom Leighton, Silvio Micali, RSA Cryptographers Track '03 Postscript / PDF
  
• Ring Signatures for Ad-hoc Groups, with Emmanuel Bresson and Jacques Stern, Crypto '02 Postscript / PDF
• Analysis of the Revised NTRU signature scheme R-NSS, with Craig Gentry, Eurocrypt '02, Postscript / PDF
  Full version: including appendices, applications to NTRUSign Postscript PDF
  
• A Two-Server Sealed-Bid Auction Protocol, with Ari Juels, Financial Cryptography '02. Postscript / PDF
• Cryptanalysis of the NTRU signature scheme, (NSS), from Eurocrypt 2001, with Craig Gentry, Jakob Jonsson, and Jacques Stern, Asiacrypt '01. Postscript / PDF

Some Manuscripts and Presentations (Cryptography)

• NSS Cryptanalysis - Slides presented at Eurocrypt 2001 Powerpoint
• Revised NSS Cryptanalysis Summary Postscript / PDF
• Revised NSS Cryptanalysis Presentation Powerpoint

Some Manuscripts and Presentations (Mathematics)

This thesis work involves explicit constructions of Néron models, extensions of Tate's Algorithm to compute the special fiber of an elliptic curve to the non perfect residue field case, and the resolution of singularities on elliptic schemes.

• Thesis Abstract and Theorem statements Postscript / PDF
• Discussion specialized to characteristic zero Postscript / PDF
• Treatment in Mixed Characteristic, (full generality), (Ph. D. thesis) Postscript / PDF
• Some Presentation Slides: Postscript / PDF

Conference Committee Participation

• RSA Conference '04
• ACNS '04 (also publicity chair)
• EuroPKI'04
• WISE'04 (publicity co-chair)
• External Referee, RSA'02, RSA'03, FC'02, FC'03, FC'04, ACM'02, ACM'03.

Selected Invited Workshop Participation and Speaking Engagements

• Boston University Business School, Feb 5, 2001, Boston, MA.
• Boston University Mathematics Department, April 8, 2001, Boston, MA.
• United States Patent Office (USPTO), April 26, 2001, Washington DC.
• Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS), Cryptography and Security Seminar, October 11, 2001, Paris, France.
• Catholic University of Lovain (UCL), Cryptography and Security Seminar, October 18, 2001, Louvain, Belgium.
• Mathematical Associatetion of America (MAA) MathFest Cryptography Seminar, June 30-31, 2002, Burlington, Vermont.
• International Conference and Research Center for Computer Science, Cryptography Workshop, Sept 22-26, 2002, Dagstuhl, Germany.
• European Institute for Computer Anti-Virus Research (EICAR), May 1-4 2004, Luxemburg.
• United States Patent Office (USPTO), October 5, 2004, Washington DC.
• Centre International de Rencontres Mathematiques (CIRM), Cryptography Workshop, Nov 8-12 2004, Luminy, France.