Dr Man Ho Allen Au

Professor
Department of Computing
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Office: PQ812, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Email: mhaau [at] polyu.edu.hk
Phone: +852 2766 7282

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Dr Man Ho Allen Au is a Full Professor and Associate Head (Research and Development) at the Department of Computing, and the director of the Research Centre for Blockchain Technology of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Before that, he was an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Hong Kong. Allen's research interests include Information Security, Applied Cryptography, Blockchain Technology, and their applications. He has been ranked as HKU Scholar in the Top 1% (by Clarivate Analytics in the top 1% worldwide by citations) in 2020 - 2022. He is also listed as the World's Top 2% Scientists by single-year impact and by career-long impact in the list published by Stanford University in Oct 2022. His research has generated significant social and economic impact. He is currently an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, Journal of Information Security and Applications, and an editorial board member of Journal of Cryptologic Research.

News

2026

• Our Project ShieldTrade successfully secures funding in the 3rd round of RAISe+ Scheme. (2026-04-20)
• I am honour to serve as a general co-chair of ASIACRYPT 2026. (2026-03-25)
• The Research Centre for Blockchain Technology signed an MoU with the Ethereum Foundation to advance blockchain research and talent development. (2026-02-16)

2025

• "Practical Multi-party Private Set Intersection with Reducible Zero-sharing", Yewei Guan, Hua Guo, Man Ho Au, Jiarong Huo, Jin Tan, Zhenyu Guan, accepted by IEEE S&P 2026. (2025-10-03)
• "Bootstrappable Fully Homomorphic Attribute-Based Encryption with Unbounded Circuit Depth", Feixiang Zhao, Shixin Chen, Man Ho Au, Jian Weng, Huaxiong Wang, Jian Guo, accepted by ASIACRYPT 2025. (2025-08-11)
• "Tightly, Adaptively Secure Proxy Re-Encryption in Multi-Challenge Setting", Yunhao Ling, Jie Chen, Zijian Bao, Man Ho Au, Luping Wang, Haifeng Qian, accepted by ASIACRYPT 2025. (2025-08-11)
• I am honour to be elected to the Young Member Section of the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering. (2025-08-01)
• "Efficient Constant-Size Linkable Ring Signatures for Ad-hoc Rings via Pairing-Based Set Membership Arguments", Min Xie, Zhengzhou Tu, Man Ho Au, Junbin Fang, Xuan Wang, Zoe Lin Jiang, accepted by ACM CCS 2025. (2024-05-23)
• I am honour to be awarded the Hong Kong Engineering Science and Technology (HKEST) Award (2024-25). (2025-03-25)
• "JesseQ: Efficient Zero-Knowledge Proofs for Circuits over Any Field", Mengling Liu, Yang Heng, Xingye Lu, Man Ho Au, accepted by IEEE S&P 2025. (2024-03-11)

2024

• "Direct Range Proofs for Paillier Cryptosystem and Their Applications", Zhikang Xie, Mengling Liu, Haiyang Xue, Man Ho Au, Robert H. Deng, Siu-Ming Yiu, accepted by ACM CCS 2024S. (2024-08-24)
• Our team ZPrize 23/24: High Throughput Signature Verification! Big congratulations to Mengling Liu, Heng Yang and Xingye! Glad to share the prize together with Prof. Yi Deng's team at IIE CAS. (2023-05-24)
• "BFTRAND: Low-latency Random Number Provider for BFT Smart Contracts", Jinghui Liao, Borui Gong, Wenhai Sun, Fengwei Zhang, Zhenyu Ning, Man Ho Allen Au, Weisong Shi, accepted by DSN 2024. (2024-03-21)
• "Efficient Linkable Ring Signatures: New Framework and Post-Quantum Instantiations", Yuxi Xue, Xingye Lu, Man Ho Au, Chengru Zhang, accepted by ESORICS 2024. (2024-03-19)
• "Efficient Verifiably Encrypted ECDSA Schemes from Castagnos-Laguillaumie and Joye-Libert Encryptions", Xiao Yang, Chengru Zhang, Xue Haiyang, Man Ho Au, accepted by IEEE TIFS. (2024-02-22)

2023

• I am honour to be awarded the BOCHK Science and Technology Innovation Prize in Fintech (2023). (2023-11-01)
• "Efficient Zero-Knowledge Arguments For Paillier Cryptosystem", Borui Gong, Wang Fat Lau, Man Ho Au, Rupeng Yang, Haiyang Xue, Lichun Li, accepted by IEEE S&P 2024. (2023-10-28)
• Our team won ZPrize - Open Division Prize 3 (PLONK-DIZK GPU Acceleration)! Big congratulations to Xingye Lu, Zhangru Zhang and Mengling Liu! Description of our work can be found here. (2023-05-03)
• "Efficient Multiplicative-to-Additive Function from Joye-Libert Cryptosystem and Its Application to Threshold ECDSA", Haiyang Xue, Man Ho Au, Mengling Liu, Kwan Yin Chan, Handong Cui, Xiang Xie, Tsz Hon Yuen and Chengru Zhang, accepted by ACM CCS 2023. (2023-03-17)

2022

• "ePoSt: Practical and Client-friendly Proof of Storage-Time", Chengru Zhang, Xinyu Li and Man Ho Au, accepted by IEEE TIFS (2022-12-12)
• "Stateful Switch: Optimized Time Series Release with Local Differential Privacy", Qingqing Ye, Haibo Hu, Kai Huang, Man Ho Au and Qiao Xue, INFOCOM 2023 (2022-12-02)
• "Public-Key Watermarking Schemes for Pseudorandom Functions", Rupeng Yang, Zuoxia Yu, Man Ho Au and Willy Susilo, accepted by CRYPTO 2022 (2022-05-20)
• "Efficient Verifiably Encrypted ECDSA-Like Signatures and Their Applications", Xiao Yang, Mengling Liu, Man Ho Au, Xiapu Luo and Qingqing Ye, accepted by IEEE TIFS (2022-3-16)
• "Towards Practical Auditing of Dynamic Data in Decentralized Storage", Huayi Duan, Yuefeng Du, Leqian Zheng, Cong Wang, Man Ho Au and Qian Wang, accepted by IEEE TDSC (2022-1-13)

2021

• "Dual-Anonymous Off-Line Electronic Cash for Mobile Payment", Jianbing Ni, Man Ho Au, Wei Wu, Xiapu Luo, Xiaodong Lin and Xuemin (Sherman) Shen, accepted by IEEE TMC (2021-12-2)
• "BIDL: A High-throughput, Low-latency Permissioned Blockchain Framework for Datacenter Networks", Ji Qi, Xusheng Chen, Yunpeng Jiang, Jianyu Jiang, Tianxiang Shen, Shixiong Zhao, Sen Wang, Gong Zhang, Li Chen, Man Ho Au and Heming Cui, accepted by SOSP 2021. (2021-08-07)
• "Efficient Online-friendly Two-Party ECDSA Signature", Haiyang Xue, Man Ho Au, Xiang Xie, Tsz Hon Yuen and Handong Cui, accepted by ACM CCS 2021. (2021-07-21)
• "DualRing: Generic Construction of Ring Signatures with Efficient Instantiations", Tsz Hon Yuen, Muhammed F. Esgin, Joseph K. Liu, Man Ho Au and Zhimin Ding, accepted by CRYPTO 2021. (2021-05-22)
• "Enabling Secure and Efficient Decentralized Storage Auditing with Blockchain", Yuefeng Du, Huayi Duan, Anxin Zhou, Cong Wang, Man Ho Au and Qian Wang, accepted by IEEE TDSC. (2021-05-12)
• "Happer: Unpacking Android Apps via a Hardware-Assisted Approach", Lei Xue, Hao Zhou, Xiapu Luo, Yijin Zhou, Yang Shi, Guofei Gu, Fengwei Zhang and Man Ho Au, accepted by IEEE S&P 2021. (2021-02-20)

2020

• "LF-GDPR: A Framework for Estimating Graph Metrics with Local Differential Privacy", Qingqing Ye, Haibo Hu, Man Ho Au, Xiaofeng Meng and Xiaokui Xiao, accepted by IEEE TKDE. (2020-12-16)
• "Possibility and Impossibility Results for Receiver Selective Opening Secure PKE in the Multi-Challenge Setting", Rupeng Yang, Junzuo Lai, Zhengan Huang, Man Ho Au, Qiuliang Xu and Willy Susilo, accepted by ASIACRYPT 2020.(2020-8-16)
• "PGC: Decentralized Confidential Payment System with Auditability", Yu Chen, Xuecheng Ma, Cong Tang and Man Ho Au, accepted by ESORICS 2020. (2020-6-29)
  
• "Collusion Resistant Watermarkable PRFs from Standard Assumptions", Rupeng Yang, Man Ho Au, Zuoxia Yu and Qiuliang Xu, accepted by CRYPTO 2020.(2020-5-16)
• "Geometric range search on encrypted data  with Forward/Backward security", Shabnam Kasra Kermanshahi, Shifeng Sun, Joseph Liu, Ron Steinfeld, Surya Nepal, Wang Fat Lau and Man Ho Au, accepted by IEEE TDSC. (2020-3-8)
• "LF-GDPR: A Framework for Estimating Graph Metrics with Local Differential Privacy", Qingqing Ye, Haibo Hu, Man Ho Au, Xiaofeng Meng and Xiaokui Xiao, accepted by ICDE 2020 [short paper]. (2020-2-7)
  
• "Practical Escrow Protocol for Bitcoin", Xiao Yang, Wang Fat Lau, Qingqing Ye, Man Ho Au, Joseph K. Liu and Jacob Cheng, accepted by IEEE TIFS. (2020-1-30)
• "RingCT 3.0 for Blockchain Confidential Transaction: Shorter Size and Stronger Security", Tsz Hon Yuen, Shi-feng Sun, Joseph K. Liu, Man Ho Au, Muhammed F. Esgin, Qingzhao Zhang and Dawu Gu, accepted by FC 2020. (2019-12-3)

2019

• "Collusion Resistant Watermarking Schemes for Cryptographic Functionalities", Rupeng Yang, Man Ho Au, Junzuo Lai, Qiuliang Xu and Zuoxia Yu, accepted by ASIACRYPT 2019.(2019-8-15)
• "Strongly Secure Authenticated Key Exchange from Supersingular Isogenies", Xiu Xu, Haiyang Xue, Kunpeng Wang, Man Ho Au and Song Tian, accepted by ASIACRYPT 2019.(2019-8-15)
• "Efficient Lattice-Based Zero-Knowledge Arguments with Standard Soundness: Construction and Applications", Rupeng Yang, Man Ho Au, Zhenfei Zhang, Qiuliang Xu, Zuoxia Yu and William Whyte, accepted by CRYPTO 2019.(2019-4-30)
• "Re-thinking untraceability in the CryptoNote-style blockchain", Jiangshan Yu, Man Ho Au and Paulo Esteves-Verissimo, accepted by CSF 2019. (2019-4-22)
• "Raptor: A Practical Lattice-Based (Linkable) Ring Signature", Xingye Lu, Man Ho Au and Zhenfei Zhang, accepted by ACNS 2019. (2019-4-2)
• "A Light-Weight White-Box Encryption Scheme for Securing Distributed Embedded Devices", Yang Shi, Wujing Wei, Hongfei Fan, Man Ho Au, Xiapu Luo, accepted by IEEE TC. (2019-3-13)
• "Aggregating Crowd Wisdom via Blockchain: A Private, Correct, and Robust Realization", Huayi Duan, Yifeng Zheng, Yuefeng Du, Anxin Zhou, Cong Wang, Man Ho Au, accepted by PerCom 2019. (2019-1-23)
• "New Empirical Traceability Analysis of CryptoNote-Style Blockchains", Zuoxia Yu, Man Ho Au, Jiangshan Yu, Rupeng Yang, Qiuliang Xu and Wang Fat Lau, accepted by FC 2019. (2018-11-14)

2018

• "A Distributed Evaluation Protocol with Privacy Protection for Intercloud", Dou Yi, Henry CB Chan and Man Ho Au, accepted by IEEE TPDS. (2018-11-7)
• "Towards Efficient Verifiable Conjunctive Keyword Search for Large Encrypted Database", Jianfeng Wang, Xiaofeng Chen, Shifeng Sun, Joseph K. Liu, Man Ho Au, Zhi-Hui Zhan, accepted by ESORICS 2018. (2018-6-15)
• "Achieving Flexibility for ABE with Outsourcing via Proxy Re-Encryption", Zuoxia Yu, Man Ho Au, Rupeng Yang, Junzuo Lai and Qiuliang Xu, accepted by ASIACCS 2018. (2018-3-3)
• "Hedged Nonce-Based Public-Key Encryption: Adaptive Security under Randomness Failures", Zhengan Huang, Junzuo Lai, Wenbin Chen, Man Ho Au, Zhen Peng and Jin Li, accepted by PKC 2018. (2017-12-14)
• "Anonymous Post-Quantum Cryptocash", Huang Zhang, Fangguo Zhang, Haibo Tian and Man Ho Au, accepted by FC 2018. (2017-12-14)
• "When Query Authentication Meets Fine-Grained Access Control: A Zero-Knowledge Approach", Cheng Xu, Jianliang Xu, Haibo Hu and Man Ho Au, accepted by SIGMOD 2018. (2017-11-19)

Additional Information

My name in Chinese is .

My parents also gave me the English name Allen when I was young. Please feel free to call me Allen!

Additional information about me can be found via the links below.

• Google Scholar
• DBLP
• My old page at HKU

Contact

Office: PQ812, Department of Computing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong

Email: mhaau [at] polyu.edu.hk

Phone: +852 2766 7282

I am looking for self-motivated PhD students (Spring/Fall 2027 Admission) and have a number of Postdoc and RA positions availabe. Please send me an email if you are interested!