Indistinguishability Obfuscation (iO) with Huijia (Rachel) Lin

In this episode of Zero Knowledge, Anna Rose and Tarun Chitra interview Rachel Lin, a professor at the University of Washington, about indistinguishability obfuscation (iO), often called the "holy grail of cryptography." Rachel explains the concept of obfuscation, its history, and the specific meaning of "indistinguishability" in iO. The conversation explores the power and applications of iO, comparing it to other cryptographic primitives like Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), and functional encryption. Rachel also discusses her 2021 paper, which introduced a novel construction of iO based on well-founded assumptions, and touches on current research directions, including lattice-based constructions and new approaches to achieving practical iO.