Evaluation of Secure-Multi-Party-Computation-Frameworks for the Web Browser

Secure Multi-Party Computation (MPC) is now a practical privacy-preserving cryptographic building block. With the help of MPC, numerous data analyses can be carried out in such a way that the participants’ input data remains secret and privacy is maintained. For instance, a survey can be conducted in a meeting/lecture where only the result is known and cryptographically – at protocol level – it is ensured that practically no identifiable conclusions can be drawn about the respective participants’ input data. And ideally, the participants actively take part in the computation.

One of the next steps in enabling MPC for a large number of end users – as in the example above – is to run the MPC frameworks on the corresponding end devices. Especially because the computer usage environment has become very dynamic, and the trend continues in this direction: Computer/SmartPhone/Tablet/SmartWatch/SmartHome/etc. Hence, the execution in the web browser becomes more and more relevant for respective applications.

Therefore, in this project (1) current approaches for running MPC in the web browser are examined, and (2) two specific MPC frameworks (JIFF and MPyC-Web) are then examined in more detail and compared based on their practical suitability for running MPC in the web browser.