The technical objectives of CACE are the following:
Objective 1:
Automatic translation from natural specifications: Advanced, high-level cryptographic engineering often involves concepts with sufficient depth that they are beyond the competence of typical software engineering teams. Zeroknowledge proofs or multiparty computation are good examples; they are conceptually easy to grasp but exceptionally difficult to use and implement. The CACE project aims to facilitate the development of applications that include advanced cryptography through tools which allow a natural description and automatic translation into an executable form.
Objective 2:
Automatic security awareness, analysis and correction: Through programmer error, and deficient programming tools, mid and low level cryptographic implementation can be flawed in the sense that security vulnerabilities can exist (e.g., through software and hardware based side-channel attacks). Harnessing research in areas such as provable security, the CACE project aims to provide automatic program analyses to avoid or detect specific security flaws and correct them thorough suitable program transformations.
Objective 3:
Automatic optimization for diverse platforms: Efficiency of computation and communication within mid and low level cryptographic implementations are critical to the feasibility and future scalability of secure ICT systems. An objective of the CACE project is to automate the optimization of cryptographic implementations at a high level, focusing on their inherentmathematical structure, and at a low level, focusing on knowledge of the host platform.
The strategic objectives of CACE are the following:
Objective 4:
Enable knowledge transfer and exploitation: Cryptographic research, including that supported by the EC via projects such as NESSIE, ECRYPT and to a lesser extent SCARD, traditionally produces outputs that are primarily of academic interest. A strategic objective of the CACE project is to enable knowledge transfer from such results into tools usable directly by non-expert software engineers.
Objective 5:
Support security critical ICT projects: Many security dependent governmental initiatives exist within EU member states; examples include secure electronic passports, identity cards, payment, auction and voting systems. A strategic objective of the CACE project is to support such initiatives by providing tools that will enhance their chance of success while reducing their cost.
Objective 6:
Establish and develop research theme: The research proposed within the CACE project represents a new, emerging field; there are currently few researchers or results in this field that are attracting us more and more researchers from different areas. A strategic goal of the CACE project is to establish such research as a recognized field, and to produce a generation of researchers with sufficient interdisciplinary skills to support future generations of ICT systems.