Nir Bitansky

Positions & education

Honors & awards

• FOCS Test of Time Award, 2025, for “Indistinguishability Obfuscation from Functional Encryption” (with Vinod Vaikuntanathan)
• Invitations to special issues of SIAM Journal on Computing for FOCS 2024, STOC 2019, STOC 2015, and FOCS 2012 papers
• Rector’s List of Excellence in Teaching, Tel Aviv University, 2019, 2021–2023 (top 20 in 2022)
• Alon Fellowship for Outstanding Young Researchers, Israeli Council for Higher Education, 2017
• Rothschild Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2014
• IBM Ph.D. Fellowship, 2013
• Faculty of Exact Sciences Fellowship for Excellence, Tel Aviv University, 2012
• Fulbright Scholar, 2011
• Best Student Paper Awards, FOCS 2012 and TCC 2012 (with Omer Paneth)
• School of Mathematics Prize for Excellence, Tel Aviv University, 2007
• School of Computer Science Prize for Excellence, Tel Aviv University, 2007
• Faculty of Exact Sciences Memorial Scholarship, Tel Aviv University, 2005 and 2006
• Dean’s List of Excellent Students, Tel Aviv University, 2005, 2006, and 2007

Publications

Preprints

1. P1
   Interactive Secret-Key PIR

   with Geoffroy Couteau and Noam Mazor · ECCC TR26-194, September 2026 · PDF
2. P2
   Secret-Key PIR from One-Way Functions

   with Noam Mazor · IACR ePrint 2026/865, May 2026 · PDF

Peer-reviewed work

1. 1
   Fair-Weather No More: Guaranteed Efficiency in Secure Group Messaging

   with James Bartusek, Yevgeniy Dodis, Rachit Garg, and David J. Wu · CRYPTO 2026 · PDF
2. 2
   Security Amplification via Robust Indistinguishability Combiners

   with Benny Applebaum and Nathan Geier · CRYPTO 2026 · PDF
3. 3
   Shuffling is Universal: Statistical Additive Randomized Encodings for All Functions

   with Saroja Erabelli, Rachit Garg, and Yuval Ishai · STOC 2026 · PDF
4. 4
   Additive Randomized Encodings from Public Key Encryption

   with Saroja Erabelli and Rachit Garg · CRYPTO 2025 · PDF
5. 5
   Succinct Randomized Encodings from Laconic Function Evaluation, Faster and Simpler

   with Rachit Garg · EUROCRYPT 2025 · PDF
6. 6
   Dot-Product Proofs and Their Applications

   with Prahladh Harsha, Yuval Ishai, Ron Rothblum, and David Wu · FOCS 2024 · PDF
7. 7
   Robust Additive Randomized Encodings from IO and Pseudo-non-linear Codes

   with Sapir Freizeit · CRYPTO 2024 · PDF
8. 8
   Amplification of Non-interactive Zero Knowledge, Revisited

   with Nathan Geier · CRYPTO 2024 · PDF
9. 9
   Reusable Online-Efficient Commitments

   with Omer Paneth and Dana Shamir · CRYPTO 2024 · Publication
10. 10
    Batch Proofs are Statistically Hiding

    with Chethan Kamath, Omer Paneth, Ron Rothblum, and Prashant Vasudevan · STOC 2024 · PDF
11. 11
    Non-Interactive Universal Arguments

    with Omer Paneth, Dana Shamir, and Tomer Solomon · CRYPTO 2023 · PDF
12. 12
    Bootstrapping Homomorphic Encryption via Functional Encryption

    with Tomer Solomon · ITCS 2023 · PDF
13. 13
    PPAD is as Hard as LWE and Iterated Squaring

    with Arka Rai Choudhuri, Justin Holmgren, Chethan Kamath, Alex Lombardi, Omer Paneth, and Ron D. Rothblum · TCC 2022 · PDF
14. 14
    Constructive Post-quantum Reductions

    with Zvika Brakerski and Yael Tauman Kalai · CRYPTO, QCRYPT 2022 · PDF
15. 15
    Statistically Sender Private OT from LPN and Derandomization

    with Sapir Freizeit · CRYPTO 2022 · PDF
16. 16
    Non-malleable Commitments Against Quantum Attacks

    with Huijia Lin and Omri Shmueli · EUROCRYPT, QCRYPT 2022 · PDF
17. 17
    Classical Binding for Quantum Commitments

    with Zvika Brakerski · TCC 2021 · PDF
18. 18
    Post-quantum Resettably-Sound Zero Knowledge

    with Michael Kelner and Omri Shmueli · TCC 2021, QCRYPT 2021 · PDF
19. 19
    Characterizing Deterministic Prover Zero Knowledge

    with Arka Rai Choudhuri · TCC 2020 · PDF
20. 20
    Weakly Extractable One Way Functions

    with Noa Eizenstadt and Omer Paneth · TCC 2020 · PDF
21. 21
    Post-quantum Zero Knowledge in Constant Rounds

    with Omri Shmueli · STOC 2020, QCRYPT 2020, QIP 2021 · PDF
22. 22
    On the Cryptographic Hardness of Local Search

    with Idan Gerichter · ITCS 2020 · PDF
23. 23
    On Oblivious Amplification of Coin-Tossing Protocols

    with Nathan Geier · ITCS 2020 · PDF
24. 24
    On the Complexity of Collision Resistant Hash Functions: New and Old Black-Box Separations

    with Akshay Degwekar · TCC 2019 · PDF
25. 25
    On Round-Optimal Statistical Zero-Knowledge Arguments

    with Omer Paneth · CRYPTO 2019 · PDF
26. 26
    Weak Zero-Knowledge Beyond the Black-Box Barrier

    with Dakshita Khurana and Omer Paneth · STOC 2019, SIAM Journal on Computing 2022 · PDF
27. 27
    Distributional Collision Resistance Beyond One-Way Functions

    with Iftach Haitner, Ilan Komargodski, and Eylon Yogev · EUROCRYPT 2019 · PDF
28. 28
    One-Message Zero Knowledge and Non-Malleable Commitments

    with Huijia Lin · TCC 2018 · PDF
29. 29
    Multi-Collision Resistance: A Paradigm for Keyless Hash Functions

    with Yael Tauman Kalai and Omer Paneth · STOC 2018 · PDF
30. 30
    Verifiable Random Functions from Non-Interactive Witness-Indistinguishable Proofs

    TCC 2017, Journal of Cryptology 2019 · PDF
31. 31
    Structure vs Hardness through the Obfuscation Lens

    with Akshay Degwekar and Vinod Vaikuntanathan · CRYPTO 2017, SIAM Journal on Computing 2021 · PDF
32. 32
    On Removing Graded Encodings from Functional Encryption

    with Huijia Lin and Omer Paneth · EUROCRYPT 2017 · PDF
33. 33
    A Note on Perfect Correctness by Derandomization

    with Vinod Vaikuntanathan · EUROCRYPT 2017, Journal of Cryptology 2022 · PDF
34. 34
    From Cryptomania to Obfustopia through Secret-Key Functional Encryption

    with Ryo Nishimaki, Alain Passelègue, and Daniel Wichs · TCC 2016B, Journal of Cryptology 2019 · PDF
35. 35
    3-Message Zero Knowledge against Human Ignorance

    with Zvika Brakerski, Yael Tauman Kalai, Omer Paneth, and Vinod Vaikuntanathan · TCC 2016B · PDF
36. 36
    Time-Lock Puzzles from Randomized Encodings

    with Shafi Goldwasser, Abhishek Jain, Omer Paneth, Vinod Vaikuntanathan, and Brent Waters · ITCS 2016 · PDF
37. 37
    Indistinguishability Obfuscation: from Approximate to Exact

    with Vinod Vaikuntanathan · TCC 2016A · PDF
38. 38
    Perfect Structure on the Edge of Chaos

    with Omer Paneth and Daniel Wichs · TCC 2016A · PDF
39. 39
    Indistinguishability Obfuscation from Functional Encryption

    with Vinod Vaikuntanathan · FOCS 2015, Journal of the ACM 2018 · PDF
40. 40
    On the Cryptographic Hardness of Finding a Nash Equilibrium

    with Omer Paneth and Alon Rosen · FOCS 2015 · PDF
41. 41
    Succinct Randomized Encodings and their Applications

    with Sanjam Garg, Huijia Lin, Rafael Pass, and Sidharth Telang · STOC 2015; SIAM Journal on Computing 2019 · PDF
42. 42
    ZAPs and Non-Interactive Witness-Indistinguishability from Indistinguishability Obfuscation

    with Omer Paneth · TCC 2015 · PDF
43. 43
    On Virtual Grey Box Obfuscation for General Circuits

    with Ran Canetti, Yael Tauman Kalai, and Omer Paneth · CRYPTO 2014, Algorithmica 2016 · PDF
44. 44
    The Impossibility of Obfuscation with Auxiliary Input or a Universal Simulator

    with Ran Canetti, Henry Cohn, Shafi Goldwasser, Yael Tauman Kalai, Omer Paneth, and Alon Rosen · CRYPTO 2014 · PDF
45. 45
    Leakage-Tolerant Computation with Input-Independent Preprocessing

    with Dana Dachman-Soled and Huijia Lin · CRYPTO 2014 · PDF
46. 46
    On the Existence of Extractable One-Way Functions

    with Ran Canetti, Omer Paneth, and Alon Rosen · STOC 2014, SIAM Journal on Computing 2016 · PDF
47. 47
    Obfuscation for Evasive Functions

    with Boaz Barak, Ran Canetti, Yael Tauman Kalai, Omer Paneth, and Amit Sahai · TCC 2014 · PDF
48. 48
    Why “Fiat-Shamir for Proofs” Lacks a Proof

    with Dana Dachman-Soled, Sanjam Garg, Abhishek Jain, Yael Tauman Kalai, Adriana Lopez-Alt, and Daniel Wichs · TCC 2013 · PDF
49. 49
    Succinct Non-Interactive Arguments via Linear Interactive Proofs

    with Alessandro Chiesa, Yuval Ishai, Rafail Ostrovsky, and Omer Paneth · TCC 2013, Journal of Cryptology 2022 · PDF
50. 50
    Recursive Composition and Bootstrapping for SNARKs and Proof-Carrying Data

    with Ran Canetti, Alessandro Chiesa, and Eran Tromer · STOC 2013 · PDF
51. 51
    On the Impossibility of Approximate Obfuscation and Applications to Resettable Cryptography

    with Omer Paneth · STOC 2013, SIAM Journal on Computing 2015 · PDF
52. 52
    From the Impossibility of Obfuscation to a New Non-Black-Box Simulation Technique

    with Omer Paneth · FOCS 2012, SIAM Journal on Computing 2015 · PDF
53. 53
    Succinct Arguments from Multi-Prover Interactive Proofs and their Efficiency Benefits

    with Alessandro Chiesa · CRYPTO 2012 · PDF
54. 54
    Leakage-Tolerant Interactive Protocols

    with Ran Canetti and Shai Halevi · TCC 2012 · PDF
55. 55
    Point Obfuscation and 3-Message Zero Knowledge

    with Omer Paneth · TCC 2012 · PDF
56. 56
    The Hunting of the SNARK

    with Ran Canetti, Alessandro Chiesa, Shafi Goldwasser, Huijia Lin, Aviad Rubinstein, and Eran Tromer · Journal of Cryptology 2016 · PDF
57. 57
    Program Obfuscation with Leaky Hardware

    with Ran Canetti, Shafi Goldwasser, Shai Halevi, Yael Tauman Kalai, and Guy N. Rothblum · ASIACRYPT 2011 · PDF
58. 58
    On Strong Simulation and Composable Point Obfuscation

    with Ran Canetti · CRYPTO 2010, Journal of Cryptology 2013 · PDF

Ph.D. thesis: Getting Inside the Adversary’s Head: New Directions in Non-Black-Box Knowledge Extraction, Tel Aviv University, 2015.

Invited Talks

• Secret-Key PIR from Secret-Key Cryptography, Charles River Crypto Day, Boston University (10/02/2026, upcoming)
• Shuffling is Universal: Statistical Additive Randomized Encodings for All Functions, NY Crypto Day, Columbia University (10/17/2025); Institute for Advanced Study (05/18/2026, video)
• Weak Zero Knowledge Beyond the Black-Box Barrier, Weizmann Theory Seminar, Rehovot; Hebrew University Theory Seminar, Jerusalem (2019)
• Multi-Collision Resistance: A New Paradigm for Keyless Hashing, Tel Aviv Area Cryptography Seminar, Tel Aviv (2018)
• On the Cryptographic Hardness of Finding a Nash Equilibrium, Stanford Theory Seminar, San Jose; UC Berkeley Theory Seminar, Berkeley; Weizmann Theory Seminar, Rehovot; Tel Aviv Theory Seminar, Tel Aviv; MIT Theory Colloquium, Cambridge (2015); Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (2017, video)
• Our Current Knowledge of Knowledge Assumptions, DIMACS Workshop on Complexity of Cryptographic Primitives and Assumptions, New York (2017, video)
• A Simple Recipe for Verifiable Random Functions, MIT Cryptography and Information Security Seminar, Cambridge (2017)
• A Reduction from Flying Pigs to Jumping Pigs, Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton (video); Tel Aviv University Crypto Seminar (2017)
• From Cryptomania to Obfustopia through Secret-Key Functional Encryption, Simons Institute, Crypto Program Reunion, Berkeley (2016); Charles River Crypto Day, MIT, Cambridge (10/14/2016)
• Program Obfuscation: The Power of Unreadable Code, Tel Aviv University; Technion; Hebrew University; Carnegie Mellon University; Toronto; University of Washington (2016, video)
• Time Lock Puzzles from Randomized Encodings, Simons Institute, Workshop on Math Foundations of Crypto, Berkeley (2015, video)
• Indistinguishability Obfuscation from Functional Encryption, Tel Aviv Area Cryptography Seminar, Tel Aviv (2015)
• Virtual Grey Box Obfuscation for General Circuits, I-CORE Day, Jerusalem; MIT Cryptography and Information Security Seminar, Cambridge (2014)
• Extractable Functions: Fiction or Reality?, Celebration of the work of Shafi Goldwasser and Silvio Micali, Rehovot; China Theory Week, Aarhus (2013)
• The Impossibility of Approximate Obfuscation and Resettable Crypto, MIT Cryptography and Information Security Seminar, Cambridge; Tel Aviv Theory Seminar, Tel Aviv; Tel Aviv Area Cryptography Seminar, Tel Aviv (2013)
• From the Impossibility of Obfuscation to Non-Black-Box Simulation, Tel Aviv Area Cryptography Seminar, Tel Aviv; Technion Theory Seminar, Haifa; Hebrew University Theory Seminar, Jerusalem (2012)
• How to Bootstrap a SNARK in Public, MIT Cryptography and Information Security Seminar, Cambridge (2012)
• From Extractable Collision-Resistance to Succinct Non-Interactive Arguments of Knowledge, and Back Again, NYC Cryptography Day, NYC; Boston University Security and Cryptography Seminar (2012)
• Leakage-Tolerant Protocols and Obfuscation with Leaky Hardware, Tel Aviv Area Cryptography Seminar, Tel Aviv; Boston University Security and Cryptography Seminar; IBM Watson, New York (2011)
• On Strong Simulation and Composable Point Obfuscation, Tel-Aviv - Weizmann Cryptography Seminar, Tel Aviv; MIT Cryptography and Information Security Seminar Cambridge (2010)

More videos from conference talks

• Constructive Post-quantum Reductions, CRYPTO 2022
• Classical Binding for Quantum Commitments, TCC 2021
• On the Cryptographic Hardness of Local Search, ITCS 2020
• On Round-Optimal Statistical Zero-Knowledge Arguments, CRYPTO 2019
• On Removing Graded Encodings from Functional Encryption, EUROCRYPT 2017
• A Note on Perfect Correctness by Derandomization, EUROCRYPT 2017
• Indistinguishability Obfuscation from Functional Encryption, FOCS 2015
• On the Cryptographic Hardness of Finding a Nash Equilibrium, FOCS 2015
• On Virtual Grey Box Obfuscation for General Circuits, CRYPTO 2014
• Leakage-Tolerant Computation with Input-Independent Preprocessing, CRYPTO 2014

Research grants (PI or co-PI)

• ARIA, Advanced Crypto for AI, joint, 2026 ($100,000 per PI)
• Stellar Development Foundation, Dot Product Proofs, 2026 ($75,000)
• ERC Starting Grant, Secrecy Preserving Proofs, 2022–2027 (€1.4 million; concluded July 2025)
• Israel Science Foundation, Non-Black-Box Cryptography, 2018–2022 (NIS 880,000)
• Israel Science Foundation, Verification and Delegation of Quantum Processes, joint, 2019–2022 (NIS 300,000 per PI)
• Blavatnik Foundation, Program Obfuscation, 2017–2022 ($77,000)
• Blavatnik ICRC, Cryptographic Proofs of Integrity, joint, 2020–2022 (NIS 140,000 per PI)

Advising & mentorship

Teaching

Professional service

Program committees

STOC 2025, 2026; FOCS 2018, 2022; CRYPTO 2021, 2024 (area chair); EUROCRYPT 2017–2019, 2021; ITCS 2020, 2023, 2027; TCC 2015, 2016A, 2017, 2019, 2022; PKC 2017.

Organization and other service

NYU CRYPTO Day (2026); Many Colors of Crypto Workshop (2023); Crypto@TAU Theory Fest (2022, 2023); Efficient Probabilistic Proofs Workshop, Bertinoro (2022); BIU Winter School on Quantum Cryptography (2021); PCP Fest (2018); Tel Aviv Area Crypto Days (2018–2022); Charles River Crypto Days (2014–2016); Israel Science Foundation committee member.