Peter G. Neumann has passed away. 94 years old. Haven't seen an obit posted yet, but here's a detailed interview with John Markov from 2012. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/science/rethinking-the-computer-at-80.html

I've recently been playing around with vibe coding some basic tree-like data structures (treaps, red-black trees, AVL trees, and hash-array mapped tries) in Rust, and then twisting the arm of the LLM to do an optimization from Sarnak and Tarjan (1986) that […] [Original post on discuss.systems]

I gave a keynote talk last week at NDSS. I spent the front half talking about memory safety and how we can, once and for all, eliminate things like buffer overflows. In the back half, I talked about how DARPA works, saying all the things that I wish I'd known […] [Original post on discuss.systems]

A useful explainer about why static type systems, in general, and Rust, in particular, are super useful for debugging code. https://blog.daniel-beskin.com/2025-12-22-the-compiler-is-your-best-friend-stop-lying-to-it

This is great: https://blog.trailofbits.com/2025/11/25/constant-time-support-lands-in-llvm-protecting-cryptographic-code-at-the-compiler-level/ LLVM 21 (and presumably all the subsequent versions) now have a constant time select intrinsic to enable cryptography algorithms to tell the compiler […]

Here's a thoughtful essay about what AI is doing to college education. In short, it's taking away from students the process of struggling to learn. That process, where you figure it out and skill up, just doesn't happen to AI-dependent students, and wow will they hit a wall when they're actually […]

I feel anxious for stepping away from teaching just as AI assistants have swept through the education system. This piece, linked below, is a thoughtful look at what we're giving up, for junior developers who rely on AI rather than having to actually think through the problem and understand the […]

Here's an amazing dance video, only a minute and a half. It's a Japanese dance troupe, Beat Surf Tendo. The choreography is by the woman in the middle in the yellow pants, Moga Almeri. It's hip hop-ish dancing to James Brown (Funky Good Time) with elements drawn from other dance styles. For […]

I looked at the news this morning, and there was a story about Panama. Every time this happens, David Lee Roth immediately shouts "way-ooooooh" and I've promptly got Van Halen in my head, rent free. Again. Happy new year! https://tenor.com/buJY1.gif

Coffee nerding: decaf edition. Coffee YouTuber James Hoffman organized a cool thing: he bought several tons of a specific single origin bean and then divided it four ways. Three went to different decaffeination plants, one normal as a control. Then they […] [Original post on discuss.systems]

Meanwhile, at Casa Wallach.

Hey #infosec folks, if you've bridged your account to #bluesky using BridgyFed (https://fed.brid.gy/) let me know so I can add that bridged account to a starter pack there. 👍 Would be great to highlight the infosec people who are here, over there. Boost around so I can nab everyone! 🚀

Personal news! I’m now a program manager at DARPA (on leave from Rice) in the Information Innovation Office. I’m looking forward to doing some exciting work in and around cryptography and computer security. Houston will be my home base for at least a few months […]