Rafail Ostrovsky Senior Research Scientist, Math Sciences Research Center Information & Computer Sciences, Applied Research contact info: Office   MCC-1C357B Phone (973) 829-4079 Fax (973) 829-2645 Email rafail@research.telcordia.com Secretary Kathy Hintz (973) 829-4848 E-mail khintz@telcordia.com Short Bio Dr. Ostrovsky received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from M.I.T. in 1992, where his thesis resolved a major open problem in the theoretical foundations of Software Protection. He was awarded NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship that he conducted at U.C. Berkeley until 1995, when he joined Bell Communications Research (Bellcore, later renamed into Telcordia Technologies.) Dr. Ostrovsky research interests are in the areas of Cryptography and Distributed Algorithms, with a primary focus in Cryptography with over 70 published papers and over 10 patents. Dr. Ostrovsky is a winner of 1993 Henry H. Taub Prize for his work in Zero-Knowledge. He was awarded the 1996 Bellcore prize for excellence in research. Dr. Ostrovsky works include the invention of proactive security in cryptography; disproving the Tiwari Conjecture; establishing that Private Information Retrieval is indeed possible for a single database; establishing a surprising connection between circuit complexity and privacy notions; as well as other fundamental contributions to the theory of cryptography. Dr. Ostrovsky has been recognized as a winner for the best published work at SAIC in 1999 in the area of Information and Communications Technology (SAIC is the parent company of Telcordia Technologies with over 38,000 employees) and as a winner for the best published work at SAIC in both 2001 and 2002 in the area of Mathematics and Computer Science. Dr. Ostrovsky is a co-chair of 2002 DIMACS Workshop on Cryptographic Protocols in Complex Environments, and has been a member of a number of program committees including ACM STOC (2000, 2003), CRYPTO (1998, 2002, and 2003), SCN (1999, 2002), SODA 2000 and RANDOM 2002. You can read Dr. Ostrovsky research summary here. Selected Publications Dr. Ostrovsky published over 70 papers in international journals and conferences, including papers invited for special issues. Click here for a detailed list of publications, which also includes at the end of the list Lecture Notes of a graduate cryptography course taught at U.C. Berkeley in 1994. You can also check DBLP Bibliography Server for a more updated list. Patents While at Telcordia, Dr. Ostrovsky filed 11 patents, many of them are already issued. Oded GOLDREICH and Rafail OSTROVSKY ``COMPREHENSIVE SOFTWARE PROTECTION SYSTEM'' U.S. Patent No.5,123,045. Rafail OSTROVSKY, Giovanni DI CRESCENZO, And Yuval ISHAI, ``METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR NON-MALLEABLE AND NON-INTERACTIVE CRYPTOGRAPHIC COMMITMENT IN A NETWORK'' U.S. Patent 6,301,664. William AIELLO, Rafail OSTROVSKY, And Sachin LODHA ``A METHOD FOR EFFICIENTLY REVOKING DIGITAL IDENTITIES'' U.S. Patent 6,397,329. Rafail OSTROVSKY, Yuval ISHAI, AND Giovanni DI-CRESCENZO, ``METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PRIVATE INFORMATION RETRIEVAL USING COMMODITIES'' U.S. Patent 6,216,128. Rafail OSTROVSKY and Eyal KUSHILEVITZ, ``METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PRIVATE INFORMATION RETRIEVAL FROM A SINGLE ELECTRONIC STORAGE DEVICE'' U.S. Patent 6,167,392. Rafail OSTROVSKY And Yuval RABANI, "METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DETERMINING APPROXIMATE HAMMING DISTANCE AND APPROXIMATE NEAREST NEIGHBORS IN AN ELECTRONIC STORAGE DEVICE" U.S. Patent 6,226,640. Rafail OSTROVSKY, Yuval ISHAI, AND Giovanni DI-CRESCENZO, ``SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PRIVATE INFORMATION RETRIEVAL USING VERIFIABLE COMMODITIES'' U.S. Patent 6,438,554. Fellowships and Honors SAIC 2002 Publication Prize for Best SAIC employee Publication in Mathematics and Computer Science (SAIC is Telcordia Parent company with over 38,000 employees) SAIC 2001 Publication Prize for Best SAIC employee Publication in Mathematics and Computer Science. SAIC 1999 Publication Prize for Best SAIC-empoloyee Publication in Information and Communications Technology. Bellcore prize for excellence in research, December 1996. Henry H. Taub Prize for the paper ``One-Way Functions are Essential for Non-Trivial Zero-Knowledge'', co-authored with Avi Wigderson, 1993. NSF Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, 1992-1995. IBM Graduate Fellowship, 1990-92. SUNY at Buffalo Department of Mathematics Undergraduate Graduation Honors: With Highest Distinction, 1984. SUNY at Buffalo Undergraduate Dean's List of Excellence, 1983-84. Professional Activities Dr. Ostrovsky frequently consults both internally (within Telcordia and SAIC) and externally on security, cryptography, algorithmic and data-mining projects. He regularly referee papers for SIAM, JACM, JCSS, SICOMP, CRYPTOLOGY and other journals. Dr. Ostrovsky also regularly serves on international program committees: Program Committees CRYPTO-2003: 23nd Annual IACR/IEEE Conference on Cryptologic Research, August 2003. STOC-2003:Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, May 2003. CRYPTO-2002: 22nd Annual IACR/IEEE Conference on Cryptologic Research, 2002. RANDOM-2002: The 6th International Workshop on Randomization and Approximation Techniques in Computer Science, 2002. Co-organizer of DIMACS Workshop on Cryptographic Protocols in Complex Environments, May 15-17, 2002. SCN-2002: Third Workshop on Security in Communication Networks, September 2002, Amalfi, Italy. STOC-2000: Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, 2000. SODA-2000: Eleventh Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, January 1-9, 2000, San Francisco. SCN-99: Second Workshop on Security in Communication Networks, September 1999, Italy. CRYPTO-98: 18th Annual IACR/IEEE Conference on Cryptologic Research 1998. ISTCS-97: 5th ISRAEL Symposium on Theory of Computing and Systems, 1997. Studies NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Conducted at U.C. Berkeley 1992-95. Ph.D., Computer Science, M.I.T. 1989-92. M.Sc., Computer Science, Boston University. B.A. Magna Cum Laude, Mathematics, (with department honors) SUNY at Buffalo.