This is an obvious but important result, but I'm not a fan of this characterization of poisoning as an attack. There are legitimate reasons to poison, especially if you consider an AI company to be the malicious party rather than the victim. www.anthropic.com/research/sma...

The first ARMOR meeting was a success with 4 great presentations on different aspects of real-world protocol resilience by @vinifortuna.com , Brien Colwell, @distributeddave.bsky.social , and @hellais.bsky.social.

New guest post from CDT Visiting Fellow & IETF expert @nicksullivan.org: Encrypted Client Hello (ECH) closes the final major privacy gap in HTTPS by encrypting the Server Name Indication (SNI) — a milestone for online privacy. 🌐 Read more:

Here are seven things I’m looking forward to in the next month. Tomorrow, I’ll be guest lecturing with Kyle Hogan at NYU for Sunoo Park’s class on public interest tech. The theme: bikeshedding and how to get things done in internet standards.

Global network interference and traffic disruption are on the rise. In 2024, governments in 41 countries blocked websites and in 25 countries entire social platforms were restricted (freedomhouse.org/report/freed...).

Continuing our look at the Enigma track talks is "Fighting Fire with Venom: Adversarial Defense Against Unauthorized Web Crawling," presented by independent technologist Nick Sullivan. 1/3

Tomorrow on USENIX Security’s Enigma track, I’ll unveil Venom, a new framework to sting back at rogue AI web crawlers with some adversarial mischief. If you’re around Seattle, come say hi or ping me! www.usenix.org/conference/u...

The digital identity space is approaching a dangerous precipice. newdesigncongress.org/en/note/2025...

The Call for Contributed Talks is now open for RWC 2026! And the deadline for submissions is now Oct. 10, 2025. rwc.iacr.org/2026/contrib...

Here are the slides from my recent keynote on post-quantum cryptography and Q-Day. www.linkedin.com/posts/ntsull...

Good read: a detailed and accessible report published on @chinafile by Jessica Batke and Laura Edelson on China's internet censorship system, known as the "Locknet" locknet.chinafile.com/the-locknet/...

Fascinating House Judiciary hearing going on live right now: Influence on Americans' Data Through the CLOUD Act. Big focus on the UK and Apple's E2E backup system. www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJgw...

I’m going to hold off on using the term artificial intelligence to describe this current generation of products and just call them what they are: language models. Until they gain mathematical and symbolic reasoning skills, the term “intelligence” is a stretch.

Germ is launching support for open-source AT Protocol and the Bluesky platform in their Germ messenger. Everything I want in a messaging app: strong encryption, clean UX, and trust & safety tied to social identity. A big move for private messaging and I can't be prouder to be an advisor.

These last 5 weeks have been a thrill and a half. Now fly me home…

For those following from home (or still in your hotel rooms), here’s the link for the live stream: youtube.com/live/R1NEfuv...

Excited to share that we’ve just updated the CFRG Process documentation, clarifying guidelines on document lifecycle, roles, and collaboration within the CFRG. If you’re proposing or managing CFRG work, this is essential reading! wiki.ietf.org/en/group/cfr...

I had to go visit her. She’s glorious. #moodeng

If you haven't been tracking, RCS texting is rolling out end-to-end encryption using MLS. This is a huge triumph of the IETF and the collaborative approach to creating internet-grade protocols championed there. arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025...

There’s going to be an impedance mismatch when people treat an organization as if it’s supposed to just do what they want instead of understanding what it’s actually chartered to do and why. In this case thinking the CFRG is a standards publication venue and not an advisory group for the IETF.

This is tomorrow. If you’re going, let me know! surf.mozilla.org/events/2025/...

URnetwork, a new privacy-focused VPN I’ve been helping with just launched on ProductHunt! Check it out, it’s slick. www.producthunt.com/posts/urnetw...

I’m attending RightsCon in Taipei next week. Want to talk encryption, censorship and privacy? Let me know.

The tentative program for Real World Crypto 2025 is live! rwc.iacr.org/2025/program... A huge thanks to my co-chair @malb.bsky.social and all the amazing program committee members for helping put this together. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone in Sofia! #realworldcrypto

The list of accepted talk at @rwc.iacr.org is now available: rwc.iacr.org/2025/accepte... Early registration ends 26 February. CC: programme co-chair @nicksullivan.org

Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads - tim.sh timsh.org/tracking-mys...

Security isn't just confidentiality—availability matters too. That's why I'm joining @cendemtech.bsky.social part-time as a Visiting Fellow to work on censorship resistance and privacy online. I’ve been turning my literature review into a podcast with help from AI if you want to follow along.

“Premature optimization is the root of all evil” said Knuth. With LLMs, premature deployment is the root of all costs. Dumping hundreds of millions into training when there are yet-to-be implemented algorithmic improvements is burning investor capital and wasting energy at incredible rates.

Essay: “Securing Model Weights” considered pointless | Lessons learned from (failed) protection of the Unix source code, et al… https://alecmuffett.com/article/111066 #DeepSeek #ai #copyright #llm #openai #regulation #unix

We’re doing another SplinterCon, this time in Berlin on December 9-11! If you’re not familiar, this is an event in which participants discuss the increasing balkanization of the internet and the tools that help keep these splintered networks connected. splintercon.net

If you’re interested in getting started in cryptography, check out the crypto 101 course by Dr. Alfred Menezes from UWaterloo. cryptography101.ca He’s planning on publishing the lectures from his Applied Cryptography course, which was my introduction to the field. Highly recommended.

RWC 2025 in Sofia is going to be 🔥 I'm excited to be the co-chair (along with @martinralbrecht) of the program committee this year. We have an amazing group of reviewers this year, and we're looking forward to reading the strongest batch of talk submissions yet. #realworldcrypto

HE IS RISEN medium.com/clog/rebooti...

I’m happy to announce that I'm speaking at MIT on Thursday, February 29, where I'll be discussing my experiences turning cryptographic theory into applied technology. If you'll be around Boston next week, please join me! calendar.csail.mit.edu/events/279330

Introducing RFCGPT: the virtual assistant that has read the entire RFC series. Ask it anything about internet protocols and standardization! cryptography.consulting/rfcgpt

I have an exciting update to share! Starting today, I'm available for 1:1 calls on Intro. 
Want to hop on a 15-min call this week? Book a 1:1 with me here: intro.co/nicksullivan

The Call for Contributed Talks is now open for RWC 2024! https://rwc.iacr.org/2024/contributed.php

Personal news! Today is my last day at Cloudflare. From a small startup to a global powerhouse, the journey has been nothing short of amazing. I'm grateful for a decade of innovation, collaboration, and growth. Thanks to all who made this journey special. Time for a well-earned break.

Does owning a gTLD allow you to get a one-word handle on Bluesky? The next time ICANN does an auction, I'm putting the 185K down to get the .elonmusk TLD.