About Me
I am a senior lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and Creative Technologies. Prior to joining UWE (March 2017), I worked with Prof Jens Groth as a research associate in the Information Security Group at University College London from 2015 to 2017. Prior to that, I was at the Computer Science Department at the University of Bristol between 2011 and 2015 as a post-doctoral researcher in the Cryptography Group and then as a teaching associate.
I obtained my PhD in Computer Science from the University of Bristol working on Cryptography & Information Security in 2012. My supervisors were: Prof Nigel Smart and Dr Bogdan Warinschi.
I got my Master's (with Distinction) from the University of Bristol in 2007 and my MSc project
on multi-authority key-agreement protocols won the best advanced MSc project in security award..
Between obtaining my first degree and starting my Master's, I have worked for a number of years as a Programmer & System Analyst.
Research Interests
I am primarily interested in Cryptography & Information Security.
Current/Past Research
My research centeres around privacy-preserving cryptographic protocols. Topics I have worked on include:
- Digital Cash.
- Structure-Preserving Cryptography.
- Direct Anonymous Attestation.
- Attribute-Based Cryptography.
- Proof systems and their applications.
- Signature schemes and related primitives (e.g. blind signatures, Group Signatures, Ring Signatures, etc.).
- Public-Key Encryption.
Grants & Awards:
- Royal Society International Exchanges Award. 2021-2023.
- UWE's Vice-Chancellor’s Early Career Researcher Development Award. 2018-2019.
PhD Students:
- Andrew McCarthy, 2019-Present (Adversarial Machine Learning)
- Adib Chowdhury, 2022-Present (IoT Security)
Publications:
Andrew McCarthy, Essam Ghadafi, Panagiotis Andriotis, and Phil Legg.
Functionality-Preserving Adversarial Machine Learning for Robust Classification in Cybersecurity and Intrusion Detection Domains: A Survey.
Journal of Cybersecurity and Privacy. 2022.
S. Paavolainen, C. Carr and E. Ghadafi. Adventures of a Light Blockchain Protocol in a Forest of Transactions: A Subset of a Story.
IEEE Access. 2021.
E. Ghadafi. Partially Structure-Preserving Signatures: Lower
Bounds, Constructions and More. ACNS 2021.
A. McCarthy, P. Andriotis, E. Ghadafi and P. Legg. Feature Vulnerability and Robustness Assessment against Adversarial Machine Learning Attacks.
IEEE International Conference on Cyber Security and Protection of Digital Services (IEEE Cyber Science). 2021.
J. Bootle, A. Cerulli, P. Chaidos, E. Ghadafi, and J. Groth. Foundations of Fully Dynamic Group Signatures.
Journal of Cryptology. 2020.
E. Ghadafi. Further Lower Bounds for Structure-Preserving Signatures in Asymmetric Bilinear Groups. AFRICACRYPT 2019, pp. 409-428, July 2019.
E. Ghadafi. How Low Can You Go? Short Structure-Preserving Signatures for Diffie-Hellman Vectors. Coding and Cryptography: IMACC 2017, pp. 280-304, December 2017.
A. EL Kaafarani and E. Ghadafi . Attribute-Based Signatures with User-Controlled Linkability without Random Oracles. Coding and Cryptography: IMACC 2017, pp. 161-184, December 2017.
E. Ghadafi. Subset Signatures with Controlled Context-Hiding. Coding and Cryptography: IMACC 2017, pp. 280-304, December 2017.
J. Bootle, A. Cerulli, E. Ghadafi , J. Groth, M. Hajiabadi, and S.K. Jakobsen. Linear-Time Zero-Knowledge Proofs for Arithmetic Circuit Satisfiability.
Advances in Cryptology--ASIACRYPT 2017, pp. 336-365, December 2017.
E. Ghadafi and J. Groth. Towards a Classification of Non-interactive Computational Assumptions in Cyclic Groups.
Advances in Cryptology--ASIACRYPT 2017, pp. 66-96, December 2017.
E. Ghadafi. More Efficient Structure-Preserving Signatures - Or: Bypassing the Type-III Lower Bounds. European Symposium on Research in Computer Security--ESORICS 2017, pp. 117-136, September 2017.
E. Ghadafi. Efficient Round-Optimal Blind Signatures in the Standard Model. Financial Cryptography and Data Security 2017, pp. 455-473, April 2017.
J. Bootle, A. Cerulli, P. Chaidos, E. Ghadafi, and J. Groth. Foundations of Fully Dynamic Group Signatures.
ACNS 2016, pp. 117-136, June 2016.
E. Ghadafi. Short Structure-Preserving Signatures. CT-RSA 2016, pp. 305-321. February 2016.
J. Bootle, A. Cerulli, P. Chaidos, E. Ghadafi, Jens Groth and Christophe Petit. Short Accountable Ring Signatures Based on DDH.
ESORICS 2015, pp. 243-265. September 2015.
E. Ghadafi. Stronger Security Notions for Decentralized Traceable Attribute-Based Signatures and More Efficient Constructions.
CT-RSA 2015, pp. 391-409. April 2015.
E. Ghadafi. Efficient Distributed Tag-Based Encryption and its Application to Group Signatures with Efficient Distributed Traceability.
Latincrypt 2014, pp. 327-347. September 2014.
A. El Kaafarani, L. Chen, E. Ghadafi, and J. H. Davenport. Attribute-Based Signatures with User-Controlled Linkability. CANS 2014.
A. El Kaafarani, E. Ghadafi, and D. Khader. Decentralized Traceable Attribute-Based Signatures.CT-RSA 2014, pp. 327-348. February 2014.
E. Ghadafi. Sub-linear Blind Ring Signatures without Random Oracles. Coding and Cryptography: IMACC 2013, pp. 304-323. December 2013.
D. Bernhard, G. Fuchsbauer and E. Ghadafi. Efficient Signatures of Knowledge and DAA in the Standard Model. Applied Cryptography and Network Security -- ACNS 2013. pp. 518-533.
E. Ghadafi. Sub-linear Blind Ring Signatures without Random Oracles. Coding and Cryptography: IMACC 2013, pp. 304-323. December 2013.
E. Ghadafi. Formalizing Group Blind Signatures and Practical Constructions in the Standard Model. Australasian Conference on Information Security and Privacy -- ACISP 2013. pp. 330-346.
D. Bernhard, G. Fuchsbauer, E. Ghadafi, N.P. Smart and B. Warinschi. Anonymous attestation with user-controlled linkability. Int. Journal of Information Security, 1615-5262, February 2013.
E. Ghadafi and N.P. Smart. Efficient Two-Move Blind Signatures in the Common Reference String Model. Information Security Conference -- ISC 2012.
E. Ghadafi, N.P. Smart and B. Warinschi. Groth-Sahai Proofs Revisited. Public Key Cryptography -- PKC 2010, pp. 177-192
E. Ghadafi, N.P. Smart and B. Warinschi. Practical zero-knowledge proofs for circuit evaluation. Coding and Cryptography: IMACC 2009, pp. 469-494. December 2009
Teaching:
I have been involved in teaching the following courses:
- Databases
- Data Structures and Algorithms
- Principle of Computing
- Software Product Engineering
- Cryptography
- Object Oriented Programming with Java
Research Visits
- From 10th of February to 18th of March 2016, University of Oxford -- Oxford, UK.
- From 1st of March 2013 to 31st of March 2013, Brown University -- Rhode Island, USA.
Seminars & Talks
- More Efficient Structure-Preserving Signatures: Or Bypassing the Lower Bounds. University of Oxford, Oxford – UK, March 2016. [PDF]
- Decentralized Traceable Attribute-Based Signatures. University College London , London – UK, April 2015. [PDF]
- Direct Anonymous Attestation. Brown University , Providence, RI – USA, March 2013. [PDF]
- Direct Anonymous Attestation. Bath University , Bath – UK, February 2013. [PDF]
Other Activities:
Program Committees:
External Reviewing:
- IMACC 2011, Pairing 2010, PKC 2010, EUROCRYPT 2012, PKC 2012, ACM CCS 2012, ASIACRYPT 2013, EUROCRYPT 2014, CRYPTO 2014, PKC 2015, CT-RSA 2015, IMACC 2015, ASIACRYPT 2015, PKC 2016, ACNS 2016, CRYPTO 2016.
Hobbies
Cycling, Football and Swimming .
My Calender
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