Fan Zhang
- CV:
- Email: fanzcs.cornell.edu
- Google Scholar, DBLP
- Follow @0xFanZhang
- GitHub: Follow @bl4ck5un
- PGP: EF90F9B3
About
I am a PhD candidate in the department of Computer Science at Cornell University, advised by Prof. Ari Juels. My research interests center on the security and privacy of decentralized systems, in particular those enabled by blockchain protocols and trusted execution environments (TEEs). My Ph.D. study focuses on understanding and securing the weakest links of blockchain security, namely places where blockchains interact with the real world. My works have been featured in Forbes, MIT Tech Review, IEEE Spectrum, CoinDesk, BitcoinMagazine, and numerous blockchain news outlets. Several of my works have been adopted by industry and deployed in the wild. I am a member of Initiative for Cryptocurrencies & Contracts (IC3). I got my Bachelor's degree from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
Recent News
Nov. 2019, DECO: Liberating Web Data Using Decentralized Oracles for TLS is to be presented at Real World Crypto (RWC) 2020.
Oct. 2019, I visited ETH Zurich and presented Connecting Blockchains to the Real World.
Oct. 2019, I presented Paralysis Proofs at ACM AFT 2019 at Zurich, Switzerland.
Sep. 2019, I visited IBM Waston Center and presented DECO (Decenetralized Oracles).
Sep. 2019, Two papers are accepted to ACM CCS'19! See you all in London!
Aug. 2019, Paralysis Proofs: Secure Access-Structure Updates for Cryptocurrencies and More is accepted to ACM AFT'19!
Apr. 2019, Ekiden: A Platform for Confidentiality-Preserving, Trustworthy, and Performant Smart Contract Execution is accepted to EuroS&P'19!
Nov. 2018, Town Crier, a trusted hardware-based oracle for smart contracts is acquired by ChainLink!
Mar. 2018, I'm awarded the IBM PhD Fellowship Award for 2018-2020.
Mar. 2018, I presented Paralysis Proof at the 5th Bitcoin workshop @ Financial Crypto 2018 in Curacao.
Awards
- 2018-2020 IBM PhD Fellowship Award
Publications
F. Zhang, S. K. D. Maram, H. Malvai, S. Goldfeder, and A. Juels.
DECO: Liberating Web Data Using Decentralized Oracles for TLS.
In submission.
S. K. D. Maram*, F. Zhang*, L. Wang, A. Low, Y. Zhang, A. Juels, and D. Song.
CHURP: Dynamic-Committee Proactive Secret Sharing.
In ACM CCS (to appear), 2019.
* indicates equal contribution.
Media coverage by: MIT Tech Review China
I. Bentov, Y. Ji, F. Zhang, Y. Li, X. Zhao, L. Breidenbach, P. Daian, and A. Juels.
Tesseract: Real-Time Cryptocurrency Exchange using Trusted Hardware.
In ACM CCS (to appear), 2019.
R. Cheng, F. Zhang, J. Kos, W. He, N. Hynes, N. M. Johnson, A. Juels, A. Miller, and D. Song.
Ekiden: A Platform for Confidentiality-Preserving, Trustworthy, and Performant Smart Contracts.
In IEEE EuroS&P, 2019.
Media coverage by: Forbes
F. Zhang, P. Daian, I. Bentov, I. Miers, and A. Juels.
Paralysis Proofs: Secure Dynamic Access Structures for Cryptocurrency Custody and More.
In ACM Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT), 2019.
Media coverage by: BitcoinMagazine
E. Cecchetti, F. Zhang, Y. Ji, A. E. Kosba, A. Juels, and E. Shi.
Solidus: Confidential Distributed Ledger Transactions via PVORM.
In ACM CCS, 2017.
F. Tramèr, F. Zhang, H. Lin, Jean-Pierre Hubaux, A. Juels, and E. Shi.
Sealed-Glass Proofs: Using Transparent Enclaves to Prove and Sell Knowledge.
In IEEE EuroS&P, 2017.
F. Zhang, I. Eyal, R. Escriva, A. Juels, and R. van Renesse.
REM: Resource-Efficient Mining for Blockchains.
In USENIX Security, 2017.
Media coverage by: IEEE Spectrum
F. Zhang, E. Cecchetti, K. Croman, A. Juels, and E. Shi.
Town Crier: An Authenticated Data Feed for Smart Contracts.
In ACM CCS, 2016.
Media coverage by: MIT Tech Review , Forbes , BitcoinExchangeGuide , Unhashed , CoinDesk , MIT Technology Review , ETHNews
F. Tramèr, F. Zhang, A. Juels, M. K. Reiter, and T. Ristenpart.
Stealing Machine Learning Models via Prediction APIs.
In USENIX Security, 2016.
L. Yang, Y. Cui, F. Zhang, J. P. Pollak, S. Belongie, and D. Estrin.
PlateClick: Bootstrapping Food Preferences Through an Adaptive Visual Interface.
In ACM CIKM, 2015.
Talks (Selected)
- Jan, 2020, Real World Crypto 2020, New York City, on DECO: Liberating Web Data Using Decentralized Oracles for TLS. Slides available here.
- Nov, 2019, CISPA-Helmholtz Center for Information Security, Germany, on Connecting Blockchains with the Real World.
- Nov, 2019, ACM CCS'19, London, UK, on CHURP: Proactive Secret Sharing with Dynamic Committee.
- Oct, 2019, ETH Zurich, on Connecting Blockchains with the Real World.
- Oct, 2019. ACM AFT on Paralysis Proofs.
- Sep, 2019. IBM Watson Research Center, IBM PhD Fellow Talk, on DECO: Liberating Web Data Using Decentralized Oracles for TLS.
- Jan, 2019. Northeastern University, Cybersecurity Speaker Series, on Ekiden and CHURP.
- Nov, 2018. MIT, CSAIL, on Trusted Hardware and Blockchain Hybridization.
- Oct, 2018. New York University, CS Colloquium, on Trusted Hardware and Blockchain Hybridization.
Software
Here are some of the open-source artifacts from my research:- Star Town Crier: an SGX-based authenticated data feeds for smart contracts.
- Star mbedTLS-SGX: a port of mbedtls to the SGX environment.
- Star CHURP: dynamic-committee proactive secret sharing.
Media Coverage
- MIT Tech Review China reported on CHURP by MIT Tech Review China on Mar 27, 2019
- Blockchain smart contracts are finally good for something in the real world by MIT Tech Review on Nov 19, 2018
- Cornell's Town Crier Acquired By Chainlink To Expand Decentralized Oracle Network by Forbes on Nov 1, 2018
- Chainlink Blockchain Company Acquires Cornell’s Town Crier to Bolster Native Smart Contract Network by BitcoinExchangeGuide on Nov 2, 2018
- Chainlink Acquires Town Crier, a Hardware-Based Oracle by Unhashed on Nov 3, 2018
- Big Hitter Crypto Funds Pile Into Privacy-Enhanced Smart Contract Startup Oasis Labs by Forbes on Jul 9, 2018
- Cornell IC3 Researchers Propose Solution to Bitcoin's Multisig "Paralysis" Problem by BitcoinMagazine on Jan 19, 2018
- The Ridiculous Amount of Energy It Takes to Run Bitcoin by IEEE Spectrum on Sep 28, 2017
- Trust Your Oracle? Cornell Launches Tool for Confidential Blockchain Queries by CoinDesk on May 17, 2017
- How Encrypted Weather Data Could Help Corporate Blockchain Dreams Come True by MIT Technology Review on May 11, 2017
- Town Crier Service Delivers Solid Data To Coders by ETHNews on May 11, 2017
Professional Activities
- PC Member: BITCOIN'18
- Reviewer: USENIX Security (2016), ACM Computing Surveys (2018), TCC (2019)
Teaching
- 2015 Fall, (Part Time) TA for CS 5435: Security and Privacy in the Wild
- 2015 Spring, TA for CS 5300: Large-scale Information Systems
- 2014 Fall, TA for CS 4410: Operating Systems
Contact
- fanz at cs.cornell.edu
- 2 West Loop Road, New York, NY 10044