Program

Date: Friday, June 23, 2023

Venue: Room Cedar A

Session 1 (Chair: Xinying Yang)

• 8:30
  Opening & Welcome

• 8:40 - 9:35
  Keynote 1: Olya Ohrimenko (University of Melbourne) Title: Verifiable Machine Unlearning: Was I really forgotten?
  Abstract: The right to be forgotten entitles individuals to request for their data to be deleted by a service provider who collects their data. Since data is often used to train machine learning models (e.g., to improve user experience), Machine Unlearning has been proposed as a way to remove data points from a model. However, how does the user know that the service provider indeed executed Machine Unlearning? The problem is not trivial as model parameters may be the same before and after data deletion. In this talk, I propose to view Machine Unlearning as a security problem. To this end, I will give an overview of the first cryptographic definition of verifiable unlearning that formally captures the guarantees of a machine unlearning system. I will then show one possible instantiation of this general definition based on cryptographic assumptions and protocols, using SNARKs and hash chains. I will conclude my talk with open questions including consequences of unlearning for data privacy.

  This talk is based on joint work with Thorsten Eisenhofer, Doreen Riepel, Varun Chandrasekaran, Esha Ghosh and Nicolas Papernot.

• 9:35 - 10:30
  Keynote 2: Dumitrel Loghin (National University of Singapore)
  Title: Practical Use Cases of Blockchain and Verifiable Databases in the Industry

  Abstract: In this talk, I will start with an overview of Singapore Blockchain Innovation Programme (SBIP), which is a national programme supported by the National Research Foundation of Singapore through a S$12 million grant for 3 years. SBIP has three key objectives: (i) working with local Singaporean companies in adopting blockchain technology through Proof-of-Concept and Proof-of-Value projects, (ii) developing the blockchain ecosystem in Singapore and (iii) conducting research into the next-generation of blockchain technologies. Next, I will present a few use cases where SBIP worked with companies in researching and implementing Proofs-of-Concept projects. The domains of these projects include FinTech, supply chain, asset management, and cybersecurity. Finally, I will present some of the challenges companies face in adopting blockchain and some future directions.

Break: 10:30 - 11:00

Session 2 (Chair: Dumitrel Loghin)

• 11:00 - 11:40
  (Invited talk) Verifiable Query Processing in Blockchain Systems
  Jianliang Xu, Department of Computer Science at Hong Kong Baptist University

• 11:40 - 12:05
  Scaling Zero-Knowledge to Verifiable Databases
  Tal Derei, Dept. of Computer Science and Eng., Lehigh University;Benjamin Aulenbach, Macguyver Tech; Victor Carolino, Dept. of Computer Science and Eng., Lehigh University; Caleb Geren, Dept. of Computer Science and Eng., Lehigh University; Michael Kaufman, Dept. of Computer Science and Eng., Lehigh University; Jonathan Klein, Dept. of Computer Science and Eng., Lehigh University; Rishad Islam Shanto, Dept. of Computer Science and Eng., Lehigh University; Henry F. Korth, Dept. of Computer Science and Eng., Lehigh University

• 12:05 - 12:30
  Towards Merkle Trees for High-Performance Data Systems
  Muhammad El-Hindi, Technical University of Darmstadt; Tobias Ziegler, Technical University of Darmstadt; Carsten Binnig, Technical University of Darmstadt

Lunch: 12:30 - 13:30

Session 3 (Chair: Meihui Zhang)

• 13:30 - 14:10
  (Invited talk) Demystifying the data in a distributed ledger to optimize system performance
  Jeeta Chacko (Technical University of Munich)

• 14:10 - 14:50
  (Invited talk) SQL Ledger – Cryptographically Verifiable Data in Azure SQL – Sharing the learnings from two years in production
  Panagiotis Antonopoulos (Microsoft)

Break: 15:00 - 15:30

Session 4 (Chair: Cong Yue)

• 15:30 - 16:10
  (Invited talk) When Private Blockchain Meets Deterministic Database
  Eric Lo Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)

• 16:10 - 16:35
  BBSF: Blockchain Benchmarking Standardized Framework
  Kunpeng Ren (National University of Singapore), Jefferson Van Buskirk (Lehigh University), Zheng Yong Ang (NUS), Shizheng Hou (NUS), Nathaniel Cable (Lehigh University), Miguel Monares (UC San Diego), Hank Korth (Lehigh University), Dumitrel Loghin (NUS)

• 16:35 - 17:00
  Baldur: A Hybrid Blockchain Database with FPGA or GPU Acceleration
  Rares Ifrim (National University of Singapore), Dumitrel Loghin (National University of Singapore), Decebal Popescu (University Politehnica of Bucharest)