Did attribute based encryption make it into OpenFHE with the PALISADES merge? I know PALISADES spun off ABE as a separate module fairly recently and I didn’t see it mentioned in the docs. Any idea what the future plans for that are? Thanks
Hi @zcw100 , thanks for asking. My understanding is that the core community members of OpenFHE are working to focus on the core FHE functionality in OpenFHE, and related tech, like public key crypto and proxy re-encryption, etc…
The core ABE functionality came out of a dedicated DARPA program focused on cryptographic software obfuscation and it had a fairly different mathematical backend, which is why we originally spun it out to a different module in PALISADE. My understanding is that the ABE functionality will stay in PALISADE for now, mostly because that is where there is better support for lattice-based trapdoors.
That being said, several us in the OpenFHE and PALISADE communities are still very interested in ABE and related post-quantum lattice-based trapdoor capabilities, especially in the context of our original sponsors and the transition users in the DARPA and related communities. Would you want to talk offline, if interested in this?
Thanks. I’d love to discuss it. I was a little disappointed that OpenABE seems to have gone dormant and Apache Milagro looked like it might rise from the dead but hasn’t. It’s like ABE is the little seam engine that could, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can” but just keeps rolling back down hill. 
I know what you mean. I was always enamored by the ABE capabilities, but the performance issues have created friction for broader deployment. Our hope is that some of the latest targeted use cases would help to push the needle.