Previous Research

Abstract

In general I am interested in real world problems that can be attacked with mathematical tools. For example, I ask the following question: Is the secure mode of Internet browsers really secure? The underlying cryptographic standard is DES. Therefore, the natural interpretation of the problem is to ask whether there exists a polynomial time algorithm for breaking DES-like constructions. However, proving such a statement involves separating P from NP . Instead of confronting this fundumental open question, I reformulated the problem as an information theoretic question, and obtained concrete results using the well developed machinery of Markov chains. My past research has direct applications to cryptography, coding, proof systems, and complexity, using tools from graph theory, especially Markov chains and expander graphs.