Cryptocurrency Weekend Keynote Chelsea Button, Alfonso Tinoco & Elaine Shi
Elaine Shi
DEF CON 33 · Day 1 · Main Stage
In this keynote address, Professor Elaine Shi from Carnegie Mellon University demystifies **Oblivious RAM (ORAM)**, a foundational cryptographic primitive that has transitioned from complex theoretical constructs to large-scale, real-world deployments. The talk, titled "Oblivious RAM: From Theory to Large Scale Development Deployment," delves into how ORAM tackles a critical, often overlooked security vulnerability: **access pattern leakage**. While traditional encryption protects data content, it fails to conceal *which* data is being accessed, a side channel that can reveal sensitive information about users, programs, or transactions. Shi eloquently illustrates ORAM's journey, highlighting its adoption by major platforms like Signal, Meta, and the Ethereum Foundation, and its potential to revolutionize privacy in areas ranging from contact discovery to private AI and blockchain transactions.
AI review
Elaine Shi brings legitimate first-principles research to DEF CON — Path ORAM is her work, the Signal deployment numbers are real and staggering, and the Oblivious Labs benchmarks give practitioners something to actually evaluate. This is a credentialed researcher presenting her own results with real-world validation, not a literature survey.