Paul S. Lou
Postdoctoral Researcher · paul [DOT] lou [AT] unibocconi [DOT] it
About
Hi! I'm Paul. I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at Bocconi University working with Alon Rosen. I'm interested broadly in cryptography. My primary research goal is understanding and using new sources of hardness to construct fundamental cryptographic primitives such as public-key encryption. I also actively work on zero-knowledge proof systems, information-theoretic cryptography, and quantum algorithms.
I completed my Ph.D. at UCLA under the kind and sage guidance of Amit Sahai. Prior to that, I finished my undergraduate degrees majoring in computer science, mathematics, and statistics at the University of Pennsylvania where I was fortunate to work with Nadia Heninger.
Here's a link to my Ph.D. dissertation (with slides).
Publications
Authors listed alphabetically.
-
Quantum Advantage via Solving Multivariate Polynomials
SODA 2026
-
Fully Anonymous Secret Sharing
Crypto 2025
-
Post-Quantum PKE from Unstructured Noisy Linear Algebraic Assumptions: Beyond LWE and Alekhnovich's LPN
Eurocrypt 2025
-
Witness Semantic Security
Eurocrypt 2024
-
Computational Wiretap Coding from Indistinguishability Obfuscation
Crypto 2023
-
Hard Languages in NP∩coNP and NIZK Proofs from Unstructured Hardness
STOC 2023
-
Polynomial-Time Cryptanalysis of the Subspace Flooding Assumption for Post-Quantum iO
Eurocrypt 2023
-
Efficient NIZKs from LWE via Polynomial Reconstruction and "MPC in the Head"
Asiacrypt 2022
-
Beyond the Csiszár-Korner Bound: Best-Possible Wiretap Coding via Obfuscation
Crypto 2022 — invited to Journal of Cryptology
-
Relinearization Attack on LPN over Large Fields
CFAIL 2022 (affiliated workshop, Crypto 2022) — invited to The Computer Journal
-
Post-Quantum RSA
PQCrypto 2017
press: Why Quantum Computers Might Not Break Cryptography — Quanta Magazine
Preprints
Service
Program committee member for CCS 2026 and Oakland 2023 Posters Program.
Reviewer for Journal of Cryptology and for Designs, Codes and Cryptography.
External reviewer for
Crypto
(2022,
2025,
2026),
Eurocrypt (2024,
2025,
2026),
STOC
(2024,
2025,
2026),
TCC
(2023,
2024,
2025),
IEEE S&P (2024),
Asiacrypt
(2024).
Teaching
- CS-289: Advanced Topics in Cryptography (Quantum Cryptography) Co-lead instructor · Spring 2023 · UCLA
- CS-181: Formal Languages and Automata TA · Winter 2021, Winter 2022, Winter 2024 · UCLA
- CIS-556: Cryptography (graduate) TA · Fall 2018 · UPenn
- CIS-548: Operating Systems (graduate) TA · Spring 2018 · UPenn
- CIS-380: Operating Systems TA · Fall 2017; Head TA · Fall 2018 · UPenn
- CIS-262: Theory of Computation TA · Fall 2016 · UPenn