How to make computers work together efficiently, securely and privately

Modern computation is rarely performed by a single machine. Data is often stored, processed and analyzed across many computers, organizations or users. During his PhD, Jakob Burkhardt studied how such distributed computations can be carried out more efficiently, securely and privately.

The dissertation develops new protocols for three different settings. The first part studies how several parties can synchronize large datasets while communicating only information about the differences. The second part studies how cryptographic keys for RSA can be generated without relying on a single trusted party. The third part studies how data analysis tasks such as regression can be performed while reducing the risk of revealing sensitive information about individuals.

The PhD study was completed at the Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Aarhus University.

This summary was prepared by the PhD student.

Time: Thursday, 27 August 2026 at 13:00
Place: Building 5342, room 333, Department of Computer Science, Aarhus University, Åbogade 34, 8200 Aarhus N
Title of PhD thesis: Efficient, Secure, Private: Protocols for a Distributed World
Contact information: Jakob Burkhardt, e-mail: jakob@cs.au.dk, tel.: +45 60909069
Members of the assessment committee:
Tenure-Track Assistant Professor Emmanuela Orsini, Department of Computing Sciences, Bocconi University, Italy
Associate Research Professor Ignacio Cascudo, Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies in Software Development Technologies, Spain
Associate Professor Hans-Jörg Schulz (chair), Department of Computer Science, Aarhus University, Denmark
Main supervisor: Professor Claudio Orlandi, Department of Computer Science, Aarhus University, Denmark
Co-supervisor: Associate Professor Chris René Schwiegelshohn, Department of Computer Science, Aarhus University, Denmark Language: The PhD dissertation will be defended in English

The defence is public.
The PhD thesis is available for reading at the Graduate School of Natural Sciences/GSNS, Ny Munkegade 120, building 1521, 8000 Aarhus C