Section: Partnerships and Cooperations

International Initiatives

Inria International Labs

International Laboratory for Research in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics

• MACISA

• Title: Mathematics Applied to Cryptology and Information Security in Africa

• International Partner (Institution - Laboratory - Researcher):

  • Université des Sciences et Techniques de Masuku (Gabon) - Faculté des Sciences - Dpt de Mathématiques et Informatique - Tony Ezome

• Duration: 2012 - 2016

• The projects aims at understanding the role played by algebraic maps in public key cryptography. Since this is a very broad topic, we will focus on objects of dimension zero (finite sets and rings) and one (algebraic curves, their differentials and jacobians). The proposed project-team consists of African and French researchers working in mathematical and statistical aspects of public-key cryptology. The French researchers work in the Inria project-team LFANT in Bordeaux, and the IRMAR (Institut de Recherche en Mathématiques et Applications de Rennes) in Rennes. The African researchers already cooperate in the project PRMAIS (Pole of Research in Mathematics and their Applications in Information Security in Sub-Saharan Africa) supported by the Simons' foundation.

  The project is managed by a team of five permanent researchers: G. Nkiet, J.-M. Couveignes, T. Ezome, D. Robert and A. Enge. Since Sep. 2014 the coordinator is T. Ezome and the vice-coordinator is D. Robert. The managing team organises the cooperation, schedules meetings, prepares reports, controls expenses, reports to the LIRIMA managing team and administrative staff.

  A non-exhaustive list of activities organised or sponsored by Macisa includes

  • The Summer school (EMA) in Bamenda with the International Center for Pure and Applied Mathematics (ICPAM/CIMPA), June 2016;

  • The visit of Abdoulaye Maiga in Bordeaux to work with D. Robert on canonical lifts of genus 2 curves.

  2016 was the last year of Macisa. A new project FAST “(Harder Better) FAster STronger cryptography” has been proposed as an associated team between LFANT and the PREMA (Pole of Research in Mathematics and Applications in Africa) Simon's foundation project.

Inria International Partners

Informal International Partners

The team is used to collaborate with Leiden University through the ALGANT program for PhD joint supervision.

Eduardo Friedman (U. of Chile), long term collaborator of K. Belabas and H. Cohen is a regular visitor in Bordeaux (about 1 month every year).