Sadly, it appears Michael Rabin passed away on April 14. Among other achievements, Rabin received the Turing Award with Dana Scott in 1976 for their paper "Finite Automata and Their Decision Problems", a highly influential work in automata theory.
www.haaretz-evel.co.il/%D7%9E%D7%99...
Looking forward to AM-PQC 2026, the Workshop on Algebraic Methods in Post-Quantum Cryptography this August in Macedonia! pqcrypto.cs.ru.nl/ampqc/
Stipends for students are available. Apply before May 4th!
Today, for the third time in my mother's life and for the second in my own life, we lost a home due to it being bombed by the Israeli army.
A cluttered and complicated chart relating qubit counts to qubit error rates, comparing today's devices to cryptographic attacks.
Overdue quantum landscape update: sam-jaques.appspot.com/quantum_land...
A 2d chart can only say so much. tl;dr new results are still overhyped, but definitely worth taking seriously. This chart is based on surface codes and a big question now is whether new codes can be practical (=>useless chart)
Cette initiative citoyenne est d'actualité, par rapport aux évènements au Proche-Orient.
citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/...
In honor of April Fool's Day (which has already started in Australia), I offer you debrisprint.iacr.org for AI-generated cryptology content.
Google is also facing scrutiny for focusing on the harm CRQC poses to cryptocurrencies—an obsession of vocal influencers and the current White House—rather than on TLS implementations, DocuSign signatures, digital certificates, or any other number of more general applications that affect larger populations of people. “While CRQCs certainly do pose a threat to blockchain-based technologies based on classical ECC algorithms, they are just one of many systems in our modern world that need to transition quickly to PQC,” LaMacchia said, referring to post-quantum cryptography. “Especially when reading some of the policy proposals at the end of the white paper, I am just dumbfounded that Google is focused on policy frameworks for solving problems that seem unique to the cryptocurrency space (e.g., salvaged digital assets) and not the general threat that CRQC pose to all our systems that use public-key cryptography.”
Good coverage from Ars Technica
arstechnica.com/security/202...
Major announcement: My highly successful Applied Cryptography course taught last year at the American University of Beirut is returning as an online course, available for FREE for any qualifying student from any Lebanese university!
Read more + apply today — and please spread the word!
Proudly edited on Linux: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjqb..., www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAe5...
(not claiming Kdenlive beats SuperAppleMovieThingy-a-tor Pro Plus Plus Ultimate, tho, I've never tried any of them)
We still have a few spots left at MaGIC!
Registration closes this week... Hurry up if you want to be on top of all the latest news on Cryptographic Group Actions!
magic-workshop.github.io
Cedarcrypt CFP deadline: April 10! We're still seeking talks, workshops & research presentations on applied crypto, post-quantum, ZK, secure implementation & more. Also looking for sponsors to fund student stipends. July 13–16, Paphos, Cyprus. Help shape crypto education in the Levant!
Thomas and I looked at directed isogeny graphs!
In dim 1, we often ignore directedness, as there are only 2 "problematic" curves. Not so in dim 2: we analyze the action of automorphisms on level structures and the resulting directed graphs.
Crucial: Directed (2,2)-graphs looks Ramanujan after all!
500 server error?
Unfortunately the dates clash with another conference I committed to a while ago, but I'll keep my eyes open for future editions.
Excellent talk!
Since you called for sponsors for Cedarcrypt, do you know CIMPA www.cimpa.info/en/home? It's mostly about Mathematics, but it's pretty open to adjacent fields and has already helped several schools in Crypto.
It's too late for this summer, but keep it in mind for next editions.
I was deeply humbled by the unbelievably positive reaction to my talk at Real World Crypto 2026 in Taipei about my experiences teaching applied cryptography in post-crisis Lebanon.
The full video for the talk is now available: www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_Hx...
UPDATE: The European Parliament voted today to *end* untargeted mass scanning of private communications, firmly rejecting the error-prone and unconstitutional surveillance practices of recent years! Next: trilogue negotiations w/ Commission and Council.
TL;DR:
- SQIsign more general than initially thought.
- More space for protocol design!
- SQIsign NIST v2 still the best signature, by a small margin.
Ilinca already foreshadowed some of this in www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tGb..., though that's a different POV we're still writing up.
Come be part of Cedarcrypt, our historic new initiative to grow cryptography research, development and representation in the Levant region!
We're seeking speakers and workshop leaders: our call for submissions is open! Learn more: cedarcrypt.org
Please spread the word!
Huge congrats to the Tamarin Team on winning the Levchin Prize for the Tamarin prover, and its use in the analysis of real-world security protocols. #realworldcrypto2026
I just donated to help equip Lebanon's first responders and firefighters with essential life-saving supplies to help them deal with the massive crises unfolding due to Israeli attacks on civilian areas.
Please consider donating: fundahope.com/en/campaigns...
Consider attending our CASA summer school on cryptography and distributed computing from June 22.-25. in Bochum! Registration is open until March 12.
casa.rub.de/en/events/ca...
We're organizing a workshop on cryptographic group actions bringing together the isogeny and code communities. The workshop is just before Eurocrypt, a quick train away from Rome in the beautiful Marche.
Early registration ends this week, so grab your spot soon!
magic-workshop.github.io
Fernando is looking for a PhD student www.iacr.org/jobs/item/4164 Fernando is excellent, you should consider applying.
Publication d'une lettre ouverte contre les lois imposant la vérification d'âge sur les sites, notamment signée par des experts en cybersécurité.
csa-scientist-open-letter.org/ageverif-Feb...
I am very happy to announce that thanks to the hard work of many people (The "MIKE Team"), we now have a working implementation in SageMath of MIKE (Module Isogeny Key Exchange).
📢📢📢 𝐌𝐚𝐆𝐈𝐂 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔
𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐩 𝐨𝐧 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐩 𝐀𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐂𝐫𝐲𝐩𝐭𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐲
In May 5-8, let's all gather together to speak about Group Actions!
Early registration until March 8!
Organized with Marco Baldi, @bsky.defeo.lu, @giacomoborin.bsky.social, @andreavbasso.bsky.social
magic-workshop.github.io
Do you use a cloud-based password manager? So what's your threat model?
Vendors like Bitwarden, Dashlane, LastPass and 1Password offer you "Zero Knowledge Encryption", with statements like: "Not even the team at Bitwarden can read your data (even
if we wanted to)."
We decided to test this… 1/n
