I wrote up my thoughts about how this incident reflects on "formally verified" cryptography libraries: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

On Reed–Solomon Proximity Gaps Conjectures (Elizabeth Crites, Alistair Stewart) ia.cr/2025/2046

There is now a crowdfunding campaign that is offering to donate $400 to the chosen charity of whoever fixes Linux audio on Lenovo laptops: github.com/nadimkobeiss...

I’ve been helping with .meow, a new project to allow anyone to register a .meow domain name! Profits will go towards helping queer community causes, which is always a nice thing!

Dan Goodin urgently needs to be reminded of the definition of a zero-day arstechnica.com/security/202...

Wow, Zohran Mamdani's Arabic is impeccable.

* (You put out your hand...) * (And, just out of view, just perfectly out of view, * Another hand pressed against yours * And pushed you back.)

If you know Linux kernel audio driver development I will donate $200 to your favorite charity if you help me fix this github.com/nadimkobeiss...

OH: how do I know who I am? First I have an existential crisis of philosophy and meaning, then I remember that I have end user credentials, and just sign my request with them

comicking

Our applied cryptography class now has a mascot, Dodo, who attends every session. Here is Dodo next to the Phoenician alphabet, which he likes.

Nice

When the demon heart is crying And the blood is gushing bright Raise up your bat For the burning fight When your hope is slowly dying And your future's lost its rights Raise up your bat and face the fright Let's knock 'em dead into the night

Life situations are bleak right now for a lot of people. In tech, the "Venn Diagram" of (1) positive work and (2) making enough money to support your family is increasingly non-overlapping. We all do what we can. This image has been living in my mind rent-free for months.

Trusted Execution Environments are the gift that just keep on giving [for attackers].... TDX Attack: tee.fail SGX Attack: arstechnica.com/security/202... As the second article says "The chipmakers say physical attacks aren’t in the threat model. Many users didn’t get the memo".

Updating to Fedora 43 🤓

I wrote a long post about my experiences so far in teaching applied cryptography at the American University of Beirut: www.linkedin.com/pulse/teachi...

What is truth?

Tutoring my cousin at math. When they get an answer right, I draw a cat!

Some thoughts on what I witnessed this evening at the American University of Beirut:

Catching up on audits, official soundtrack music.youtube.com/watch?v=nwwQ...

Two stories from King's College London: 1/ A student is at risk of losing their visa over their Palestine activism www.cage.ngo/articles/leg... 2/ Equality, Diversity and Inclusion removed from job ads: www.timeshighereducation.com/news/pressur... Does that remind you of anything?

I made a Discord for my applied cryptography course and a sentence describing Grigori Perelman as the "OG tsundere" appeared within the first ten minutes

My Linux laptop's OLED display has dead pixels 😠 but thankfully the shop agreed to exchange it (tomorrow)

Music that plays when looking for a place to work on campus (office temporarily unavailable) www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzNW...

Soatok's been secretly blogging about personal integrity this whole time. The cryptography stuff is just a cover soatok.blog/2025/10/15/t...

Before morning coffee vs. after morning coffee

I was today's years old when I realised that "we" give developers an object called the Advanced Encryption Standard which is not an encryption algorithm (but a pseudorandom permutation) and then we are shocked when we encounter yet another ECB mode in the wild. 🙃

Some upcoming talks for my course's Applied Cryptography Speaker Series As always, you can learn more about my course at appliedcryptography.page (Necessary disclaimer: I'm organizing these talks on my own, AUB is not involved, and they're happening online, not at the university)

Israeli war drones visible flying over AUB campus this morning.

On the Credibility of Deniable Communication in Court (Jacob Leiken, Sunoo Park) ia.cr/2025/1949

Lebanon runs on generators—but that dependence may be quietly fueling a public health crisis. New research from AUB's Dr. Hassan Dhaini links toxic diesel emissions to one of the world’s highest bladder cancer rates, revealing a warning that could reach far beyond Lebanon. Read: tr.ee/generator 🛟

secret of evermore, super nintendo entertainment system square soft, 1995

I would sincerely appreciate it it if the EXTREMELY LOUD ARMED ISRAELI DRONE HOVERING RIGHT ABOVE CENTRAL BEIRUT AND AUB FOR THE PAST FOUR HOURS could kindly let me prepare for my cryptography class in peace

Signal is also down due to Amazon AWS outage. So yeah, secure and private communication is also dependent on reliable infrastructure.

Looks like Signal has been down worldwide for at least two hours.

Oh, you managed to break a widely used encryption system? What are your key findings?

It’s 10:05am and I still haven’t had coffee. Please send moral support

no one is immune to social conditioning and propaganda if exposed to it enough and those who think they are immune to it usually are the first victims of it. remember to log off, touch some grass and do your own research