Rafail Ostrovsky is a distinguished professor of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

and

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

and a well-known researcher in

algorithms In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for per ...

and

cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logy, -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of Adversary (cryptography), ...

Biography

Rafail Ostrovsky received his Ph.D. from

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

in 1992. He is a member of the editorial board of Algorithmica

Editorial Board of Journal of Cryptolog

and Editorial and Advisory Board of the International Journal of Information and Computer Securit

Awards

* 2022 W. Wallace McDowell Award "for visionary contributions to computer security theory and practice, including foreseeing new cloud vulnerabilities and then pioneering corresponding novel solutions" * 2021

AAAS Fellow Fellowship of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (FAAAS) is an honor accorded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to distinguished persons who are members of the Association. Fellows are elected ...

* 2021

Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned or professional societies, the term refers ...

"for contributions to the foundations of cryptography" * 2019

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

Foreign Member * 2018

RSA Award for Excellence in Mathematics Formally called since 2025 The RSAC Conference Award for Excellence in Mathematics, is an annual award. It is announced at the annual RSA Conference in recognition of innovations and contributions in the field of cryptography. An award committee o ...

"for contributions to the theory and to new variants of secure multi-party computations" * 2017

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE ...

Edward J. McCluskey Technical Achievement Award "for outstanding contributions to cryptographic protocols and systems, enhancing the scope of cryptographic applications and of assured cryptographic security." * 2017

Fellow, "for contributions to cryptography” * 2013 IACR Fellow "for numerous contributions to the scientific foundations of cryptography and for sustained educational leadership in cryptography" * 1993 Henry Taub Prize

Publications

Some of Ostrovsky's contributions to computer science include: * 1990 Introduced (with R. Venkatesan and M. Yung) the notion o
''interactive hashing''
proved essential for constructing statistical

zero-knowledge proof In cryptography, a zero-knowledge proof (also known as a ZK proof or ZKP) is a protocol in which one party (the prover) can convince another party (the verifier) that some given statement is true, without conveying to the verifier any information ...

s for NP based on any

one-way function In computer science, a one-way function is a function that is easy to compute on every input, but hard to invert given the image of a random input. Here, "easy" and "hard" are to be understood in the sense of computational complexity theory, s ...

(se
NOVY
and ). * 1991 Introduced (with M. Yung) the notion of

(later renamed ''proactive security'') (see survey of

Goldwasser Goldwasser or Danziger Goldwasser (lit. 'Gold water from Danzig'), , with ''Goldwasser'' as the registered tradename, is a strong (40% ABV) root and herbal liqueur which was produced from 1598 to 2009 in Gdańsk (). Production now takes place i ...

br>
* 1990 Introduced the first poly-logarithmic

Oblivious RAM An Oblivious RAM (ORAM) simulator is a compiler that transforms an algorithms, algorithm in such a way that the resulting algorithm preserves the Input/output, input-output (computing), output behavior of the original algorithm but the Probability ...

br>(ORAM)
scheme. * 1993 Proved (with A. Wigderson) equivalence of one-way functions and zero-knowledg

* 1996 Introduced (with R. Canetti, Cynthia Dwork, C. Dwork and M. Naor) the notion of

deniable encryption In cryptography and steganography, plausibly deniable encryption describes encryption techniques where the existence of an encrypted file or message is deniable in the sense that an adversary cannot prove that the plaintext data exists. The use ...

br>
* 1997 Introduced (with E. Kushilevitz) the first single server

private information retrieval In cryptography, a private information retrieval (PIR) protocol is a protocol that allows a user to retrieve an item from a server in possession of a database without revealing which item is retrieved. PIR is a weaker version of 1-out-of-''n'' obl ...

schem

. * 1997 Showed (with E. Kushilevitz and Y. Rabani) (1+ε) poly-time and poly-size approximate-

nearest neighbor search Nearest neighbor search (NNS), as a form of proximity search, is the optimization problem of finding the point in a given set that is closest (or most similar) to a given point. Closeness is typically expressed in terms of a dissimilarity function: ...

for high-dimensional data for L1-

norm Norm, the Norm or NORM may refer to: In academic disciplines * Normativity, phenomenon of designating things as good or bad * Norm (geology), an estimate of the idealised mineral content of a rock * Norm (philosophy), a standard in normative e ...

and

Euclidean space Euclidean space is the fundamental space of geometry, intended to represent physical space. Originally, in Euclid's ''Elements'', it was the three-dimensional space of Euclidean geometry, but in modern mathematics there are ''Euclidean spaces ...

References

External links

Ostrovsky's home page

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ostrovsky, Rafail 1963 births Living people Jewish American scientists Modern cryptographers American theoretical computer scientists American computer security academics American cryptographers University of California, Los Angeles faculty Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni 21st-century American Jews