I am an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the
University of Warwick, and a member of the
Theory and Foundations group. I am a founding member of
Warwick Quantum.
My work focuses on post-quantum proof systems. My interests include interactive proof systems and zero knowledge in general, post-quantum cryptography, quantum information, coding theory and computational complexity.
Previously, I was a postdoc at Boston University, hosted by Ran Canetti. I received my PhD from UC Berkeley, where I was advised by
Alessandro Chiesa.
I hold a master's degree in theoretical computer science from ETH Zürich, Switzerland, and a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Cambridge.
Publications
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On the necessity of collapsing
Marcel Dall'Agnol and Nicholas Spooner
Accepted to QCW 2022, QIP 2023 (poster) and TQC 2023 (proceedings).
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Speed-Stacking: Fast Sublinear Zero-Knowledge Proofs for Disjunctions
Aarushi Goel, Mathias Hall-Andersen, Gabriel Kaptchuk and Nicholas Spooner
Eurocrypt 2023, Lyon, France.
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Proof-Carrying Data From Arithmetized Random Oracles
Megan Chen, Alessandro Chiesa, Tom Gur, Jack O'Connor and Nicholas Spooner
Eurocrypt 2023, Lyon, France.
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The Superlinearity Problem in Post-Quantum Blockchains
Sunoo Park and Nicholas Spooner
Financial Cryptography (FC) 2023, Bol, Croatia.
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Quantum Rewinding for Many-Round Protocols
Russell W.F. Lai, Giulio Malavolta and Nicholas Spooner
TCC 2022, Chicago, USA.
- Post-Quantum Zero Knowledge, Revisited (or: How to Do Quantum Rewinding Undetectably)
Alex Lombardi, Fermi Ma and Nicholas Spooner.
FOCS 2022, Denver, USA. QIP 2023, Ghent, Belgium.
- On Succinct Non-Interactive Arguments in Relativized Worlds
Megan Chen, Alessandro Chiesa and Nicholas Spooner.
Eurocrypt 2022, Trondheim, Norway.
- Post-Quantum Succinct Arguments: Breaking the Quantum Rewinding Barrier
Alessandro Chiesa, Fermi Ma, Nicholas Spooner and Mark Zhandry.
FOCS 2021 (invited to SICOMP special issue), online. QIP 2022, Pasadena, USA. QCrypt 2021, online. [talk by Fermi Ma]
Talk at Protocol Labs.
- Proof-Carrying Data without Succinct Arguments
Benedikt Bünz, Alessandro Chiesa, William Lin, Pratyush Mishra and Nicholas Spooner.
CRYPTO 2021, online. Charles River Crypto Day, online. [talk]
- Proof-Carrying Data from Accumulation Schemes
Benedikt Bünz, Alessandro Chiesa, Pratyush Mishra and Nicholas Spooner.
TCC 2020, online.
- Fractal: Post-Quantum and Transparent Recursive Proofs from Holography
Alessandro Chiesa, Dev Ojha and Nicholas Spooner.
Eurocrypt 2020, online. [talk by Dev Ojha] SBC 2020, Stanford, USA. [talk]
- Efficient Post-quantum SNARKs for RSIS and RLWE and Their Applications to Privacy.
Cecilia Boschini, Jan Camenisch, Max Ovsiankin and Nick Spooner.
PQCrypto 2020. [talk by Cecilia Boschini]
- Succinct Arguments in the Quantum Random Oracle Model
Alessandro Chiesa, Peter Manohar and Nicholas Spooner.
TCC 2019, Nuremberg, Germany. QIP 2020, Shenzhen, China. [talk]
- Linear-Size Constant-Query IOPs for Delegating Computation
Eli Ben-Sasson, Alessandro Chiesa, Lior Goldberg, Tom Gur, Michael Riabzev and Nicholas Spooner.
TCC 2019, Nuremberg, Germany.
- Aurora: Transparent Succinct Arguments for R1CS
Eli Ben-Sasson, Alessandro Chiesa, Michael Riabzev, Nicholas Spooner, Madars Virza and Nicholas P. Ward.
Eurocrypt 2019, Darmstadt, Germany. 2nd ZKProof Standards Workshop, Berkeley, CA. [talk]
- Spatial Isolation Implies Zero Knowledge Even in a Quantum World
Alessandro Chiesa, Michael A. Forbes, Tom Gur and Nicholas Spooner.
FOCS 2018, Paris, France. [talk] QIP 2019, Boulder, CO, USA.
(includes material from preprint A Zero Knowledge Sumcheck and its Applications.)
- Zero Knowledge Protocols from Succinct Constraint Detection
Eli Ben-Sasson, Alessandro Chiesa, Michael A. Forbes, Ariel Gabizon, Michael Riabzev and Nicholas Spooner.
TCC 2017, Baltimore MD, USA.
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Interactive Oracle Proofs with Constant Query Complexity and Rate
Eli Ben-Sasson, Alessandro Chiesa, Ariel Gabizon, Michael Riabzev and Nicholas Spooner.
ICALP 2017, Warsaw, Poland.
- Interactive oracle proofs
Eli Ben-Sasson, Alessandro Chiesa and Nicholas Spooner.
TCC 2016-B, Beijing, China.
- Fixed-Budget Performance of the (1+1)-EA on Linear Functions
Johannes Lengler and Nicholas Spooner.
ACM/SIGEVO Foundations of Genetic Algorithms XIII (FOGA 2015), Aberystwyth, UK.
Other recorded talks
Older preprints and reports
Service
- Program committee member, Quantum Cryptography Workshop (QCW) 2022.
- Program committee member, Theory of Cryptography Conference (TCC) 2022.
- Program committee member, ZKProof4 (2021).
- Program committee member, Theory of Cryptography Conference (TCC) 2020.
- Program committee member, Stanford Blockchain Conference (SBC) 2020.
Contact: nicholas [dot] last name [at] warwick [dot] ac [dot] uk