NSF Grants MPC Proposal Award

The National Science Foundation has recommended SAIL and Research Director Andrei Lapets’ and Research Scientist and Co-Director of the Reliable Information Systems and Cyber Security (RISCS) Mayank Varia’s proposal for funding. The proposal, “SaTC: TTP: Small: Modular Platform for Web-based Secure Multi-Party Analytics” works to further the development they have made on multi-party computing platforms (MPC). The MPC technology has been applied through the Institute’s partnership with the Boston Women’s Workforce Council (BWWC), which works to bridge the pay gap between men and women, analyze the causes and problems, and move Boston toward becoming the best city in America for working women, as well as a leading, modern metropolis.  

The MPC platform was developed in various projects through the Modular Approach to Cloud Security (MACS) and the Smart-city Cloud-based Open Platform and Ecosystem (SCOPE). Together, the technology worked to create a safe and secure platform that would allow participating companies and organizations release information without risk of a third-party gaining access. The NSF grant will allow Lapets and Varia to focus exclusively on the development of the MPC, separate from both MACS and SCOPE. 

Lapets and Varia hope to move the MPC out of its current framework, and make it a production-quality product useable in broader contexts.

Thanks to their work in MPC technology, the NSF award will be one of very few granted to MPC research in the past 35 years. Lapets’ track record of successful MPC deployment in the past will serve the duo well as they attempt to create an even better approach, partially by breaking the mold. Varia notes that while most MPC technologies treat the participating parties in the same way –that is, assuming they work similarly– their technology treats the participants variedly, which allows for smoother use.