about-boya.jpeg

My mom, with her great honesty, once said "You look prettier at the age of 3". Hence, I chose this profile picture. I mean... what else can I do 🙃

I am a PhD student in the Security and Privacy Engineering Laboratory (SPRING) led by Prof. Carmela Troncoso at Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy (MPI-SP), affiliated with EPF Lausanne. My research interests are privacy engineering and applied cryptography. As an example, my last project was a collaboration with the International Committee of the Red Cross. 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 working on:

  • Censorship and its resistance in the Chinese context
  • Patron privacy & copyright law compliance in digital library lending
  • Digital safety for investigative journalists

Generally speaking, I am interested in understanding the asymmetry of this world. I ask myself whether, why, and how we shall use the asymmetry of computational complexity in cryptography to balance out the asymmetry of power in the real world. Although I have 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, 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.

I love dancing and running, just in the same way as I love my research. From time to time, I write silly posts on random things in Jí–Shěn Northeastern Mandarin 纯正辽西东北话 ;)

For research-related inquiries, feel free to drop me an email. I am always happy to share my research journey with others who have the same passion. Please refer to this page for potential collaboration, thesis supervision, internship hosting etc.

news

Mar 1, 2025 Relocated with (part of) the SPRING lab to MPI-SP. Looking forward to broadening my research horizon.
Sep 5, 2024 Research visit mission failed. I was handcuffed and detained after landed at the JFK airport.
Aug 5, 2024 I will visit the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in New York during Fall 2024.
Dec 25, 2023 I am honoured to receive a Distinguished Service Award as the Diversity Chair in EPFL IC PhD Committee 2023.
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