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education [2022/02/25 11:02]
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education [2022/02/25 11:03]
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   * **[[cryptocurrencies|Cryptocurrencies]]**:​ We have several project openings as part of our ongoing research on designing new cryptocurrency systems. Please contact [[rachid.guerraoui@epfl.ch|Prof. Rachid Guerraoui]].   * **[[cryptocurrencies|Cryptocurrencies]]**:​ We have several project openings as part of our ongoing research on designing new cryptocurrency systems. Please contact [[rachid.guerraoui@epfl.ch|Prof. Rachid Guerraoui]].
  
-  * **On the design and implementation of scalable and secure blockchain algorithms**:​ Consensus has recently gained in popularity with the advent of blockchain technologies. Unfortunately,​ most blockchains do not scale due, in part, to their centralized (leader-based) limitation. We recently designed a promising fully decentralised (leader-less) algorithm that promises to scale to large networks. The goal of this project is to implement it in rust and compare its performance on AWS instances against a traditional leader-based alternative like BFT-Smart whose code will be provided. Contact [[https://​people.epfl.ch/​vincent.gramoli|Vincent Gramoli]] for more information. 
  
-  * **Making Blockchain Accountable**:​ Abstract: One of the key drawback of blockchain is its lack of accountability. In fact, it does not hold participants responsible for their actions. This is easy to see as a malicious or Byzantine user typically double spends in a branch of blocks that disappears from the system, hence remaining undetected. Accountability is often thought to be communication costly: to detect a malicious participants who has sent deceitful messages to different honest participants for them to disagree, one may be tempted to force each honest participant to exchange all the messages they receive and cross-check them. However, we have recently designed an algorithm that shares the same communication complexity as the current consensus algorithms of existing blockchains. The goal of this project is to make blockchains accountable by implementing this accountable consensus algorithm and comparing it on a distributed set of machines against a baseline implementation. Contact [[https://​people.epfl.ch/​vincent.gramoli|Vincent Gramoli]] for more information. 
  
   * **Robust mean estimation**:​ In recent years, many algorithms have been proposed to perform robust mean estimation, which has been shown to be equivalent to robust gradient-based machine learning. A new concept has been proposed to define the performance of a robust mean estimator, called the [[https://​arxiv.org/​abs/​2008.00742|averaging constant]] (along with the Byzantine resilience). This research project consists of computing the theoretical averaging constant of different proposed robust mean estimators, and to study their empirical performances on randomly generated vectors. Contact [[https://​people.epfl.ch/​sadegh.farhadkhani?​lang=en|Sadegh Farhadkhani]] for more information.   * **Robust mean estimation**:​ In recent years, many algorithms have been proposed to perform robust mean estimation, which has been shown to be equivalent to robust gradient-based machine learning. A new concept has been proposed to define the performance of a robust mean estimator, called the [[https://​arxiv.org/​abs/​2008.00742|averaging constant]] (along with the Byzantine resilience). This research project consists of computing the theoretical averaging constant of different proposed robust mean estimators, and to study their empirical performances on randomly generated vectors. Contact [[https://​people.epfl.ch/​sadegh.farhadkhani?​lang=en|Sadegh Farhadkhani]] for more information.