The Beginner's Textbook for Fully Homomorphic Encryption

Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) is a cryptographic scheme that enables computations to be performed directly on encrypted data, as if the data were in plaintext. After all computations are performed on the encrypted data, it can be decrypted to reveal the result. The decrypted value matches the result that would have been obtained if the same computations were applied to the plaintext data. FHE supports basic operations such as addition and multiplication on encrypted numbers. Using these fundamental operations, more complex computations can be constructed, including subtraction, division, logic gates (e.g., AND, OR, XOR, NAND, MUX), and even advanced mathematical functions such as ReLU, sigmoid, and trigonometric functions (e.g., sin, cos). These functions can be implemented either as exact formulas or as approximations, depending on the trade-off between computational efficiency and accuracy. FHE enables privacy-preserving machine learning by allowing a server to process the client's data in its encrypted form through an ML model. With FHE, the server learns neither the plaintext version of the input features nor the inference results. Only the client, using their secret key, can decrypt and access the results at the end of the service protocol. FHE can also be applied to confidential blockchain services, ensuring that sensitive data in smart contracts remains encrypted and confidential while maintaining the transparency and integrity of the execution process. Other applications of FHE include secure outsourcing of data analytics, encrypted database queries, privacy-preserving searches, efficient multi-party computation for digital signatures, and more. A dynamic website version is available at (https://fhetextbook.github.io). Please report any bugs or errors to the Github issues board.