Applications of Automaton Groups in Cryptography

In 1991 the first public key protocol involving automaton groups has been proposed. In this paper we give a survey about algorithmic problems around automaton groups which may have potential applications in cryptography. We then present a new public key protocol based on the conjugacy search problem in some families of automaton groups. At the end we offer open problems that could be of interest of group theorists and computer scientists in this direction.