about-boya.jpeg

boya.wang@epfl.ch

EPFL IC IINFCOM SPRING

Bâtiment BC 249

1015 Lausanne

I am a PhD student in the Security and Privacy Engineering Laboratory led by Prof. Carmela Troncoso at EPFL. My research interest is privacy engineering and applied cryptography. As an example, my last project was a collaboration with the Internation Committee of the Red Cross on the Pribad project. Together, we examined the digitalization of humanitarian aid distribution systems and proposed a scalable design that provides formally provable security, privacy, and accountability.

More recently, I am exploring the following directions:

  • Censorship resistance in the Chinese context
  • Digital safety of investigative journalists
  • Technology, modernization of law, and policy

Generally speaking, I am interested in understanding the asymmetry of this world. I ask myself whether, how, and why we shall use the asymmetry of computational complexity in cryptography to balance out the asymmetry of power in the real world. Although I am having a lot of fun trying to find a mathematically provable and practical solution from the lens of a systematic design, I must be honest that many times the answer to the first question is negative, i.e., computation cannot solve everything.

Previously, I got my master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at ETH Zürich. Before coming to Switzerland, I got my Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Engineering at Harbin Institute of Technology in 2019.

I love dancing and running, just in the same way as I love my work. From time to time, I write silly posts (in Chinese) on random things. As you may have noticed while reading those (not necessarily non-fictional) posts, I am very proud of my dialect 纯正辽西东北话 ;)

news

Aug 5, 2024 I am going to visit Prof. Sunoo Park at the NYU Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Fall 2024.
Dec 25, 2023 I am honoured and grateful to receive a Distinguished Service Award as the Diversity Chair in EPFL IC PhD Committee 2023. This award will be a reminder for my future self that there are many things we can push, together.
May 22, 2023 Our paper “Not Yet Another Digital ID: Privacy-Preserving Humanitarian Aid Distribution” has been accepted to IEEE S&P 2023 and was selected to receive a Distinguished Paper Award.
Jul 1, 2022 I am officially a SPRINGer. Looking forward to the new adventure.
Apr 22, 2022 We placed second in the Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge.

publications

  1. IEEES&P
    Not Yet Another Digital ID: Privacy-Preserving Humanitarian Aid Distribution
    Wang, Boya, Lueks, Wouter, Sukaitis, Justinas, Narbel, Vincent Graf, and Troncoso, Carmela
    IEEE S&P’23 May 2023
  2. ASIACCS
    On the Security of the FLARM Collision Warning System
    Wang, Boya, Tresoldi, Giorgio, Strohmeier, Martin, and Lenders, Vincent
    ASIA CCS’22 May 2022