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Foundations and protocol design
Formal models and constructions for private set intersection, oblivious transfer, verifiable computation, time-lock puzzles and post-quantum settings.
Explore this themeDr Aydin Abadi · Newcastle University
Cryptography: foundations, analysis and applications
I design and analyse cryptographic protocols, from formal security models, constructions and proofs to cryptanalysis, implementation and evaluation. My work includes private computation, verifiable outsourcing and privacy-preserving AI, with applications in distributed systems and digital finance.
Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Cybersecurity and Director of the Cryptography and AI Security Lab.
RecognitionJoint first place
UK-US PETs Prize Challenge
Selected publication venuesACM CCS · NDSS
PETS · ASIACRYPT · AsiaCCS · EuroS&P
Research areas
Protocol foundations, cryptanalysis and applications
The themes below cover formal models and constructions, cryptanalysis, implementation and applications in privacy-preserving computation, verifiable systems and finance.
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Cryptanalysis and protocol security
Analysis of cryptographic constructions, security proofs and protocol failures, together with mitigations where possible.
Explore this theme03
Privacy-preserving computation and learning
Secure computation, federated learning and private inference across sensitive or distributed data.
Explore this theme04
Financial cryptography and secure digital exchange
Cryptographic protocols for payments, fraud detection, disputes and financial data collaboration.
Explore this themeSelected work
Selected research
A selection of work in cryptographic foundations, protocol design, cryptanalysis and privacy-preserving computation.
ACM CCS 2026 · Verifiable quantum computation
Time-Delayed Publicly Verifiable Quantum Computation for Classical Verifiers
A time-delayed construction for publicly verifiable delegated quantum computation. It avoids the indistinguishability-obfuscation machinery used in earlier approaches by combining commitment schemes with time-lock puzzles; security is proved in the quantum random-oracle model with a common reference string.
Financial Cryptography 2021 · Time-lock puzzles
Multi-instance Publicly Verifiable Time-Lock Puzzle and Its Applications
This work formally defines multi-instance time-lock puzzles and gives a publicly verifiable chained construction, allowing puzzle instances to be solved sequentially rather than in parallel.
ESORICS 2021 · Cryptanalysis
Polynomial Representation Is Tricky
Cryptanalysis of three private-set-intersection protocols previously proved secure against active adversaries, identifying attacks, explaining why the proofs missed them and proposing mitigations.
PETS 2026 · Delegated private retrieval
Oblivis
A framework for delegated oblivious transfer under a non-collusion assumption. Its Supersonic OT implementation achieves at least a 92× speedup over a highly efficient 1-out-of-2 OT and completes an end-to-end transfer in 1.36 ms on a Raspberry Pi 4.
AsiaCCS 2025 · Verifiable computation
Scalable Time-Lock Puzzle
A delegated time-lock framework that supports secure outsourcing when clients and servers have very different computational capabilities.
NDSS 2025 · Private data quality
Private data deduplication for federated learning
A privacy-preserving protocol for deduplicating records across distributed datasets, evaluated for training efficiency and language-model quality.
Research group
Cryptography and AI Security Lab
I lead a research group developing and analysing cryptographic protocols for private computation, verifiable outsourcing and secure digital exchange, including cryptanalysis of proposed constructions.
News
Recent updates
Selected recent research and publication updates.
Paper accepted at ACM CCS 2026
“Time-Delayed Publicly Verifiable Quantum Computation for Classical Verifiers”, with Ameer Mohammed and Jaffer Mahdi.
Oblivis accepted at PETS 2026
A framework for delegated, privacy-preserving database retrieval and efficient oblivious transfer.
Read the paperNewcastle feature on scalable time-lock puzzles
A plain-language account of how secure outsourcing can make time-delayed cryptography more practical.
Read the featureFunded PhD opportunity · Closing 10 October 2026
PhD studentship: Policy-Compliant Secure AI
The award covers 100% Home tuition fees and a minimum tax-free annual living allowance of £21,805 (2026–27 UKRI rate). International applicants must cover the difference between Home and International fees.