3. CryptoLabTN
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Members
1 Director: Massimiliano Sala
3 Research Fellows: Riccardo Aragona, Pietro Peterlongo,
Alessandro Tomasi
6 PhD students: Matteo Piva, Chiara Marcolla, Emanuele
Bellini, Marco Calderini, Federico Pintore, Claudia
Tinnirello
9 Master’s students and young graduates
2 Software engineers: Lorenzo Nicolodi, Alessio Parzian
2 Administration: Francesca Stanca, Elisa Cermignani
Alex Tomasi
Industrial Math Lab
4. CryptoLabTN
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Activities
The Lab’s main activities can be summarized as follows:
we provide several courses for cryptographers and experts
in security systems;
we develop projects funded directly by private companies;
we pursue academic research in fields closely linked to
real-life applications.
Alex Tomasi
Industrial Math Lab
5. CryptoLabTN
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Expectations
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Introduction
The Lab investigates two types of cryptography: Commercial
cryptography
e-commerce, online banking, privacy protection
use of standard solutions and protocols
upper bounds on security level
Cryptography suitable for defense applications
protection of classified information
use of dedicated solutions and own protocols
lower bounds on security level (provable security)
Alex Tomasi
Industrial Math Lab
7. CryptoLabTN
Active links
Expectations
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Stage
Students spend a continuous period of time at a company’s
office.
Requirements : adequate provision of facilities at the
company’s site
Pros : allows the company to integrate the student in
day-to-day routine over a period of time
Cons : the experience can be somewhat disjoint from
academic studies
Alex Tomasi
Industrial Math Lab
8. CryptoLabTN
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Expectations
Obstacles
Internships
Students spend some of their time at a company’s office, and
some working at dedicated stations at their academic home
institution.
Requirements : adequate provision of facilities at both sites
Pros : allows the student to use research tools on the
job and discuss problems immediately with both
professional and academic staff
Cons : requires more careful management of tasks and
expectations
Alex Tomasi
Industrial Math Lab
9. CryptoLabTN
Active links
Expectations
Obstacles
PhDs
Companies can provide the funds for a student’s PhD if the
student is willing to spend a significant amount of time, e.g. 12
months, working at the company’s premises.
Requirements : a company with sufficiently complex needs,
either due to scale or advanced technology, e.g.
finance, energy, software
Pros :
allows the company to have access to
dedicated cutting-edge scientific research for
a long period of time;
allows the student to acquire highly valuable
work experience
Cons : requires negotiation of property rights and
disclosure agreements; requires balancing the
company’s goals with research objectives
Alex Tomasi
Industrial Math Lab
10. CryptoLabTN
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Obstacles
Research contracts I
A company commissions a specific piece of research or
software.
Requirements : a company with sufficiently specific and
specialised needs
Pros :
allows the company to have access to
cutting-edge scientific research without
necessarily devoting facilities or man-hours to
the task;
allows the student to acquire highly valuable
work experience and teamwork skills
Alex Tomasi
Industrial Math Lab
11. CryptoLabTN
Active links
Expectations
Obstacles
Research contracts II
Cons :
requires negotiation of property rights and
disclosure agreements;
requires commitment to a commercial
contract that must be honoured on pain of
legal recourse;
requires the company to bear the full
commercial risk;
requires careful management of tasks and
expectations;
requires public contracts if specific hires are
necessary
Alex Tomasi
Industrial Math Lab
13. CryptoLabTN
Active links
Expectations
Obstacles
Private sector I
Concreteness : Give specific answers to the right degree of
detail; don’t just state something may be possible
in theory, say what it would take to achieve a
specific goal and whether it would make any
sense to try
Quantitative measures : applied problems require exact
answers; be mindful of constants and orders of
magnitude
Time management : meet deadlines; don’t promise more than
you can deliver; prepare for delays
Alex Tomasi
Industrial Math Lab
14. CryptoLabTN
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Expectations
Obstacles
Private sector II
Hands-on approach : prioritise solutions that work over
elegant and comprehensive ones; be ready to take
on responsibility and solve problems yourself, e.g.
by writing your own code
Professional attitude : take responsibility for your decisions,
for better or worse; keep the promises you make
and never leave something unfinished; admit to
your mistakes and fix them in the shortest possible
timeframe
Alex Tomasi
Industrial Math Lab
15. CryptoLabTN
Active links
Expectations
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Academia I
Negative results : Proving something is not possible is just as
significant a result as the opposite
Research needs to be published... : At least some of the
money spent by the company will contribute to
freely available information, but truly original ideas
can lead to valuable intellectual property
... but published research is not infallible : even if you don’t
aim for original research but simply implement
something published by others, methods that
allegedly perform well in academic tests may not
fare well when applied to real-world data
Alex Tomasi
Industrial Math Lab
17. CryptoLabTN
Active links
Expectations
Obstacles
Lack of information I
First and foremost, this is the greatest problem to be overcome
in all its facets: both the private sector and academia are
susceptible to it. Here are some concrete examples and a few
suggestions on how to solve it.
Private sector :
The company does not even realise it has a
problem.
The company has no idea academia can
solve their problems without buying something
off-the-shelf or calling in a consultancy firm.
Alex Tomasi
Industrial Math Lab
18. CryptoLabTN
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Expectations
Obstacles
Lack of information II
Academia :
The institution does not know which
companies operate in the vicinity.
The company has no idea academia can
solve their problems without buying something
off-the-shelf or calling in a consultancy firm.
Common : sources of funding.
Alex Tomasi
Industrial Math Lab
19. CryptoLabTN
Active links
Expectations
Obstacles
Establishing channels I
The best way to overcome a lack of information is to establish
channels through which it can be spread, from one-to-one
channels to comprehensive forums.
Conferences : organised by either academia or the private
sector, regular events encourage participation
Courses : highly specialised and intensive events, one day
or at most a week
Consortia : some business categories form consortia whose
entire reason for being is to provide services to the
category that funds them, among which spreading
awareness of resources for problem-solving is
prominent
Alex Tomasi
Industrial Math Lab
20. CryptoLabTN
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Establishing channels II
Career fairs : inviting companies to participate in
end-of-academic-year career events makes them
aware of graduates’ skill sets
Successful collaborations : past performance is not a
reliable indicator of future returns - but it is great
for spreading word-of-mouth!
Alex Tomasi
Industrial Math Lab
21. CryptoLabTN
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Expectations
Obstacles
Sources of funding I
These largely depend on local arrangements and are highly
thematic, but some noteworthy ones include:
Public interest, regional : foundations (financial or
otherwise), regional government, region-specific
national funds
Entrepreneurial : Start-up and spin-off funds are sometimes
available from universities or business chambers
EU : a multitude of options, from individual
scholarships to projects involving a dozen
companies - these all have trans-national
requirements
Alex Tomasi
Industrial Math Lab
22. CryptoLabTN
Active links
Expectations
Obstacles
Bureaucracy I
Another major hurdle to overcome is pervasive and pernicious
bureaucracy, to which the only permanent solution is successful
lobbying against red tape. Meanwhile, mitigation strategies are
essentially based on careful planning to address the following
risks:
Taxes : transactions are taxed at every level, including
cuts taken on contracts by departments and
colleges
Hiring : if a project requires a specific skill-set, such as
software development in a certain language, a
formal hiring process may take time and impose
unrealistic requirements on candidates
Alex Tomasi
Industrial Math Lab
23. CryptoLabTN
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Expectations
Obstacles
Bureaucracy II
Proliferation of signatories : Ensure you know how many
layers of approval are required to pass a contract
before you agree on a deadline with companies.
Intellectual Property : European law states that IP derived
from research contracts belongs to the companies
funding the research. Have this argument with
your university’s IP office before drafting the
contract.
Enterprise risk : Italian law states that as universities run on
public funds, they cannot bear enterprise risk - in
other words, anyone signing a contract with
academia must pay up, as long as work has
demonstrably been done, regardless of the
outcome of the research.
Alex Tomasi
Industrial Math Lab
