cloak and dagger 🗡️ tech. clandestine comms + cryptography. Founder of Katzenpost, a fully post-quantum mixnet. https://xitter.gq/t.co/Wsb9AMq5pQ
Spain
Joined January 2009
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which is why i am so glad that there's a research group under IRTF called "Human Rights Protocol Considerations". Mathematics doesn't automatically take the side of the people. We must carefully consider how the system's authority is distributed!
David Stainton priv/acc retweeted
A CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) is a publicly disclosed security flaw.
They increased following a slight upward slope all the way to early 2024, when there was a sudden small increase... then starting in 2026, we went full exponential.
In most instances, the vulnerabilities were pre-existing, so much of the increase is just our better ability to find the faults.
This is of historical importance. We have never witnessed anything of the sort.
David Stainton priv/acc retweeted
Small announcement: ✅ formal-git
As an experiment, over the last 2 months we've modelled ~30% of Git in Lean 4, making heavy use of coding agents, and proved >8000 theorems of varying usefulness about the implementation.
In the process of doing this we've uncovered >100 potential defects in Git v2.55, at least two of which may constitute security vulnerabilities. We've also built a DRT (differential random testing) harness and the biggest corpus of relevant pinned differential test cases for Git implementations with >10k unique tests at the moment.
We've used the test cases to test our own small internal implementation of Git in TypeScript. The next step will be to differentially test all notable public Git implementations against this corpus of tests to help improve their correctness and security 🫡 We'll be reaching out to library maintainers in due course.
If you have a Git implementation you'd like us to help you test, please reach out and let me know. We'll open-source all this eventually, after potential security issues that were uncovered are responsibly disclosed and fixed.
ALT Infographic: Reads: formal-git, Git, rebuilt in Lean 4, with machine-checked proofs
I initially wrote cryptlib.io/ as a way to model Katzenpost mixnet cryptography in Lean. But then I realized I can write entire high assurance apps in Lean and cryptlib is my lean cryptography library for doing so.
It's possible to write high assurance security software in Lean... and not just lemmas and theorems about security properties. Here's a GUI and a TUI library in Lean: github.com/katzenpost/tesser… github.com/katzenpost/paw
I love Lean, not just for revolutionizing mathematics but also as a programming language. And I think it's totally cool to be able to write theorems about my code. But it's even cooler when you can move those theorems into struct proposition fields.
Why are we still using SSH protocol? It's 31 years old! What I think we should want to use instead is a new protocol based on PQ Noise that uses hybrid KEMs. It's great too if the entire thing was formally verified Lean code.
Remember that last quote from Ghost in The Shell about using some four digit number as a authentication password? Don't design cryptographic security systems based on mutterings of a 20 year old anime movie.
David Stainton priv/acc retweeted
Announcing hashsma.sh! 𝟘 𝟙 ❒ 🔨
Strengthen cryptography with AI.
Cryptography—both current and post-quantum cryptography—depends on hashes. SHA-256? SHA-3? BLAKE3? Nobody knows if they are secure. We're going to find out!
Come help accelerate scientific research!
HashSmash is an open science-acceleration project in collaboration with @yukonresearch, @eigenlabs, @projecteleven, and @ShieldedLabs.
Mr. Spock on Star Trek uses the word "logic" incorrectly; Star Trek is responsible for multiple generations grownups using the word incorrectly. If you want to use the word logic, perhaps actually study logic first; programming doesn't count as studying logic.
I'm in Utrecht now for one week attending a Lean theorem prover summer school class. Where should I eat dinner?
David Stainton priv/acc retweeted
Can we get the IETF TLS WG chairs to help out with the U.S. elections? Allow votes only from pre-existing landowners plus the list of people who the chairs declare have demonstrated enough expertise to vote? Also, make sure to hide that list: web.archive.org/web/20260719…
David Stainton priv/acc retweeted
SimpleX Chat can't and won't scan private chats, ever. It's not just a promise, it's a technical impossibility.
314 MEPs just voted AGAINST mass surveillance "Chat Control."
Only 276 voted for it. Yet it still passed.
More Members voted to kill the mass surveillance bill than to keep it and it became law anyway.
This is the EU’s version of “democracy” when it comes to destroying privacy civil liberties.
reclaimthenet.org/eu-brings-…
David Stainton priv/acc retweeted
Yesterday was a sad day for the privacy of citizens in the European Union given the extension of #ChatControl 1.0, allowing for voluntary scanning of private communications.
In light of yesterday's vote, we wanted to remind you that:
Chat Control 1.0 is different from Chat Control 2.0 in that providers (like us at Tuta) are not forced to backdoor their end-to-end encryption for surveillance.
At Tuta, if Chat Control 2.0 is passed we have two options: to move out of the EU or sue and fight it. As our CEO, Matthias Pfau has stated, we would sue and fight for people's privacy. Because for us, undermining end-to-end encryption is not an option.
We will continue to say no to #ChatControl and fight for everyone's right to privacy. ✊🏻❤️🔒
Find out more about Voluntary Chat Control here 👉 tuta.com/blog/voluntary-scan…
David Stainton priv/acc retweeted
The EU Parliament REJECTED Chat Control, but now they are forcing us to vote it AGAIN to revive it. What kind of democracy is this if we're forced to vote on the same issue over and over until they get the result they want?
My colleague @MarketkaG explained the situation very well in plenary👇🏻
David Stainton priv/acc retweeted
The EU Parliament rejected mass scanning of private messages in March.
Yesterday, it approved an urgent procedure to revive the measure, setting up a decisive vote on Thursday, the last sitting day before summer recess.
At second reading, the text passes automatically unless 361 MEPs vote against it, and some MEPs have already left for the Summer break...
reclaimthenet.org/eu-parliam…
.@chaosupdates The EU funded our mixnet; tomorrow it votes to outlaw it. My open letter to the European Parliament cites the 800+ scientists' letter alongside the @EU_Commission's own evaluation: katzenpost.network/pages/cha… #ChatControl