BIFOLD Colloquium

ABSTRACT: As distributed systems become increasingly prevalent in today's computing landscape, ensuring security and privacy is a paramount concern. In this talk, Dr. Rafael Pires will discuss the role of Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) in addressing these challenges. The talk will provide an overview of TEEs, their underlying concepts, and how they can be effectively leveraged to create secure and private distributed systems. Drawing from research in the field, the presentation will explore applications, current challenges, and recent advancements in TEE technology. Throughout the discussion, Rafael will also highlight the trade-offs and considerations that developers and researchers need to keep in mind when incorporating TEEs into their distributed systems design. This presentation aims to offer an understanding of TEEs and their potential in shaping secure, privacy-preserving distributed systems, along with practical insights on how to apply this technology to various projects.

SPEAKER: Dr. Rafael Pires, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL)
Rafael Pires is a computer scientist and Postdoctoral researcher at EPFL, Switzerland, focusing on system problems at the intersection of privacy and distributed machine learning. With Master's degrees in Computer Science and Mechatronics, Rafael has a diverse background in both the industry and public sector. He has published extensively on Trusted Execution Environments and is keen on exploring the potential of this emerging technology to build secure and private distributed systems.