Simon Rastikian

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Master's student at École Normale Supérieure - Paris
Interest : cryptology, security & privacy and quantum computation.

Education

2021 Master's 2 MPRI - École Normale Supérieure
I followed few courses on the first semester and I am currently doing a 5 months internship at Crypto Quantique for my second semester.
My coursework includes:

  • Randomness in complexity
  • Techniques in cryptography
  • Efficient algorithm in computer algebra
  • Cryptographic protocols: formal and computational proofs
  • Quantum information
  • Quantum information and cryptography
  • Error correcting codes and application to cryptography
  • Arithmetic algorithms for cryptography
  • Network Security
  • Web data management

2020 Year of Ceasura - École Normale Supérieure
After my Master's 1, I discussed with my tutor at ENS David Pointcheval to take a year of caesura and do 10 months of internships in cryptology and computer security. This year has been divided into 2 months of internship extension in the University of Luxembourg, 5 months of internship in CryptoNext security in Paris, and 3 months of internship at IBM Research Zurich.

2019 Master's 1 - École Normale Supérieure
I followed few courses on the first semester and did a 5 months internship at the University of Luxembourg in the second semester.
Part of my coursework includes:

  • Information security
  • Machine learning
  • Networks
  • Networks models and algorithms
  • Robot motion planning and control
  • Software engineering
  • Learning with Deep neural networks

2018 Bachelor 3 - École Normale Supérieure
I got accepted in the École Normale Supérieure in the computer science departement.
I followed few courses in the first and the second semester and did a 2 months internship in the CNRS lab in Lorient.
Part of my coursework includes:

  • Digital systems, from algorithm to circuit
  • Information theory and coding
  • Operating systems and computer networks
  • Databases
  • Algorithms and programming
  • Programming languages and compilation
  • Basics of cryptology
  • Complex analysis
  • Formal languages, computability and complexity

2017 Bachelor 2 - Université Pierre et Marie Curie
I integrated a one-year double-major course in mathematics and computer science.
Part of my coursework includes:

  • Algorithmics initiation
  • Introduction to relational databases
  • Introduction to operating systems
  • Data structure programming in C
  • Programming elements with Java
  • Tools for numerical approximation
  • Arithmetic elements for cryptography
  • Probabilities
  • Arithmetics
  • Series of functions, Fourier series, generalized integrals
  • Representations and numerical methods
  • Power series, parameter-dependent integrals
  • Linear algebra Ⅱ, Euclidean vector spaces, affine isometries
  • Multivariate functions, vector analysis and multiple integrals

2016 Bachelor 1 - Université Pierre et Marie Curie
I started the first semester by doing some physics, mechanics, and chemistry. Then I switched in the second semester to studying mathematics and physics.
Part of my coursework includes:

  • Calculus
  • Analysis and algebra Ⅱ

Experience

Internships

2021 Crypto Quantique - London - 5 months, March-August
Supervisor: Pooya Farshim
This internship is divided into two sections. The first is a practical one, and it aims to implement a one RTT version for KEMTLS protocol created by Patrick Towa. The second part is a theoretical one and it aims to study Indifferentiability security notion for idealized models of computation.

2020 IBM Research - Zurich - 3 months, June-August
Supervisor: Bertram Poettering
Creation of two digital signature primitives. We intend to submit two papers.

2019 - 2020 CryptoNext Security - Paris - 5 months, November-March
Supervisors: Jean-Charles Faugère & Ludovic Perret
Introduction to the cryptographic challenges brought by the future Quantum Computers. This includes the study of Lattice-based Quantum Resistant cryptographic algorithm NTRU Prime. The aim is to help implement a secure and efficient library using ARM assembly and C languages.

2019 APSIA Group - University of Luxembourg - 7 months, March-October
Supervisors: Peter Y. A. Ryan & Peter B. Rønne
Performance an in depth security analysis of the Selene verifiable voting scheme. This includes the development of formal definitions of the appropriate security properties and threat models. Assistance with the development of a prototype of a variant of Selene for trials in the VOLT project in collaboration with Surrey, King’s College London and Electoral Reform Services.

2018 Lab-STICC - CNRS, Huygens research center in Lorient - 2 months, July-August
Supervisor: Arnaud Tisserand
An introduction to side channel attacks against Elliptic Curve algorithms. This included the study of the Simple Power Analysis (SPA) attack on the window Non-Adjacent Form (NAF) method for point multiplication. This algorithm was implemented in C language and was combined to the µ-NaCl (which implements the Curve25519 in ARM assembly) to be injected to the STM32L053R8 and then tested. As some complication occured, a combination of the Montgomery algorithm and the window NAF algorithm was created.

Skills

Languages

  • Arabic – Mother tongue
  • English – Fluent
  • French – Fluent
  • Spanish – Intermediate

I.T.

  • ProgC, OCaml, Python, Rust, Magma, Java, Bash, TensorFlow, PostgreSQL, X86-64 Assembly, ARM Assembly, Shell
  • WebHTML, CSS, JavaScript, Django
  • ToolsGit, LaTeX, Docker, ProVerif, F*

Projects

2021 The project was done in the Web data management course.

  • Coding a plantation projects scraper web application.

2019 The projects were done in the Information security, Networks and Software engineering courses.

2018 The projects were done in the Programming languages and compilation, Digital systems and Operating systems and computer networks courses.

  • Mini-Rust Compiler.
  • 8 bits RISC microprocessor simulator.
  • Mini-OS for Intel 8086 microprocessor.

Talks

Sep 2020 New Signature Primitives, ENS, Paris, France.

Aug 2020 Flavours of ongoing work: from e-voting protocols to signature schemes , IBM Research, Zurich, Switzerland.

Sep 2019 Design and analysis of e-voting protocols and properties, ENS, Paris, France.

Jun 2019 Selene: An uncoercible tracker for your vote, SnT partnership day, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg.

Apr 2019 Individual Verifiable Bulletin Board, PhD Colloquium on Voting, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg.

Sep 2018 Protection of cryptographic keys recodings against physical attacks, ENS, Paris, France.

Competitions

  • 2019 Challenge data a collection of real problems that could be solved using machine learning.
  • 2018 TRACS a privacy & security competition organised by ViaRézo and DGSE

Many Thanks

I thank many people for helping and supporting me all this way starting from my family, some ENS and UPMC friends, and some ex-teachers and supervisors.