Semester project at EPFL

This is a project I worked on during the spring semester of 2024, which I spent abroad at EPFL. The work is titled "An overview on different preimage-sampling algorithms in lattice cryptography" and consists of a comparison of three methods for preimage sampling based on the original method proposed by Micciancio and Peikert in 2012.

Sadly, I can't say I am 100% satisfied with the final shape of this work: we realised close to the deadline of the project that we had to change its scope, which was originally meant to be much more ambitious.

The orignal idea was to try and adapt the results of another article on a signature scheme on which G. Fenzi was working at the time. However, we realised that the implementation of the techniques from the source article would require more adaptations than what was feasible in the remaining time, meaning that in practice there was no result to write about. This meant drastically cutting the scope of the project, into a "simple" comparison of different preimage sampling methods.

Additionally, at the time I was not yet introduced to zero-knowledge cryptography (which I discovered in the same semester and immediately became passioned about it) and in retrospect, given that I worked on this project with Giacomo Fenzi who was at the time a PhD student of Alessandro Chiesa, it could have been a extremely interesting (though not possible given my knowledge on the topic at the time) to ask for a project in zero-knowledge. Oh well, ifs and buts...

Either way, I do believe that working on this project, as well as the general experience at EPFL, gave me a much more solid background on cryptography and research, and helped me realize which fields of cryptography I want to specialize in.