Security Cryptography Whatever

Hosted by Deirdre Connolly, Thomas Ptacek, David Adrian

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Aug 2026

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Some cryptography & security people talk about security, cryptography, and whatever else is happening.

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October 27, 2026Episode 251 min

Everybody Is Losing Their Minds About AI Math And Crypto

The gang talks about what AI getting Good At Math might mean for cryptography, and why public-key cryptography probably isn’t ending. David is on a mission to civilize and claims a crisis of empiricism. He also wrote a blog post about this. Everyone agrees Nadia deserves tokens. “I mean, you could claim that anything's real if the only basis for believing in it is that nobody's proved it doesn't exist!” Transcript : https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2026/10/27/everybody-is-losing-their-minds-about-ai-math-and-crypto/ Chapters: 00:00 intro 05:19 rumors swirl 12:37 math etiquette 17:11 magical math machines 21:42 diffie-hellman 29:50 finite field 34:45 david aware 42:36 complexity theory 48:40 full disclosure Links: - David’s Blog: https://dadrian.io/blog/posts/everybody-is-losing-their-minds/ - Similar opinions from virgi: https://people.csail.mit.edu/virgi/thoughts.txt - The OpenAI Math Drop: https://github.com/openai/math - Scientific American on the OpenAI math drop: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/openai-unleashes-hundreds-more-math-results-upon-a-field-already-in-shock/ - Derek Thompson on AI’s impact on math: https://www.derekthompson.org/p/i-know-why-the-mathematicians-weep - Sophie Schmieg’s blog connecting elliptic curves and finite field DH: https://keymaterial.net/2025/05/23/there-is-no-diffie-hellman-but-elliptic-curve-diffie-hellman/ - Friend of the show Steve Weiss factored RSA-896 with spare Anthropic capacity: https://saweis.net/posts/rsa-896.html - Alex Clemmer’s tweet about the shortcomings of complexity theory: https://x.com/hausdorff_space/status/2107916908616175701 - Ben Recht (Berkeley ECE) on the FFT improvements showing how complexity theory can be disconnected from real computers:: https://www.argmin.net/p/faster-fourier-transforms - State of the art number field sieve implementation (CADO-NFS): https://cado-nfs.gitlabpages.inria.fr/ - Why 128-bits of symmetric security is enough for quantum resistance: https://words.filippo.io/128-bits/ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadia_Heninger - https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~nadiah/ - Matt Green’s Tokens to Humans estimator: https://bitsofwork.org/ "Security Cryptography Whatever" is hosted by Deirdre Connolly (@durumcrustulum), Thomas Ptacek (@tqbf), and David Adrian (@dadrian)

August 26, 2026Episode 150 min

AI Lattice Proofs with Chris Peikert

The robots are at it again, and this time they’re solving, and breaking(?), math and cryptography! Things have been happening in the lattice corner including new leapfrogging complexity results in the closest vector problem (CVP), AND a possible poly-time quantum attack against the dihedral coset problem (DCP) that made everyone freak out for about a week (UPDATE: looks like it’s busted: https://eprint.iacr.org/2026/1693). ALSO, there was an important distinguisher attack against Classic McEliece, which on its face doesn’t sound like a big deal, unless you’re familiar with the track record of efficient distinguishers in the history of code-based cryptography… 😱 To help us make sense of all this we are joined again by OG friend of the pod Chris Peikert! We had trouble with his audio but tried our best to fix it, apologies. Transcript: https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2026/08/26/ai-lattice-proofs-with-chris-peikert/ Links: - https://openai.com/index/ten-advances-in-mathematics/ - https://cdn.openai.com/pdf/ten-proofs-oai.pdf - https://x.com/ChrisPeikert/status/2083534770403750025 - https://bsky.app/profile/chrispeikert.bsky.social/post/3msp3boueis2z - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_satisfiability_problem - https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/wordcel-shape-rotator-mathcel - Chen 2024: https://eprint.iacr.org/2024/555 - https://eprint.iacr.org/2026/1630 - https://eprint.iacr.org/2026/1693 - CVP within n^(1/2-ɛ) - : https://eprint.iacr.org/2026/1655 "Security Cryptography Whatever" is hosted by Deirdre Connolly (@durumcrustulum), Thomas Ptacek (@tqbf), and David Adrian (@dadrian)

July 27, 2026Episode 81 hr 17 min

An Odyssey of Lattice Cryptography with Mark Schultz-Wu

We invited Mark Schultz-Wu on the podcast to talk about the history of lattice cryptography. When lattices are explained in plain english, they are actually quite simple! I don't think any of us have ever seen Deirdre so happy. If you're watching the video version, there's a section that's 6.1 minutes long with no cuts and consists just of Deirdre vigorously agreeing with what Mark is saying while smiling. What a time to be alive. Anyway, we are hosting another happy hour in Vegas between Black Hat and DEF CON! It's sponsored by Teleport ! Thank you to Teleport, and dear readers, you should go check them out. Check out our socials or the podcast site to register. Transcript: https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2026/07/27/lattices-with-mark-schultz-wu/ Links: Mark's IETF Post https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/tls/HznE1IcCjstEjhh4M1p59qX1JlQ/ NTRU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTRU The original lattices are hard paper https://www.scirp.org/reference/referencespapers?referenceid=3401227 The original LWE for cryptography paper https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.03703 Entropic LWE https://eprint.iacr.org/2020/119 Dilithium round 3 submission: https://pq-crystals.org/dilithium/data/dilithium-specification-round3.pdf Recent attacks on Classic McEliece: https://eprint.iacr.org/2024/1694 Lectures on post-quantum cryptography from Alfred Menezes (an originator of elliptic curve cryptography) https://www.youtube.com/@cryptography101-alfred Falcon https://csrc.nist.gov/csrc/media/Presentations/2024/falcon/images-media/prest-falcon-pqc2024.pdf Regev: https://cims.nyu.edu/~regev/#research Tightness in Proofs: https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/360.pdf "Security Cryptography Whatever" is hosted by Deirdre Connolly (@durumcrustulum), Thomas Ptacek (@tqbf), and David Adrian (@dadrian)

July 2, 2026Episode 756 min

Trump's Golden Post-Quantum EO(s)

The dear leader has actually bleated out some not-dumb executive orders (EOs) to accelerate adoption of post-quantum crypto for the US government! This looks to be in response to a flurry of advancements in quantum computing and quantum attack algorithms a few months ago. We cram legalize into our eyeballs— plus, ECDSA.fail! Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZwQpN_F6P8 Transcript: https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2026/07/02/trumps-golden-post-quantum-eos Links: - The EO https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/06/securing-the-nation-against-advanced-cryptographic-attacks/ - CNSA2 https://media.defense.gov/2022/Sep/07/2003071836/-1/-1/0/CSI_CNSA_2.0_FAQ_.PDF - https://media.defense.gov/2025/May/30/2003728741/-1/-1/0/CSA_CNSA_2.0_ALGORITHMS.PDF - https://www.ecdsa.fail/ - https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/safety-security/cryptography-migration-timeline/ - https://blog.cloudflare.com/post-quantum-roadmap/ - https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/research/neutral-atom-quantum-computers/ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedRAMP - https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/06/ushering-in-the-next-frontier-of-quantum-innovation/ - https://blog.trailofbits.com/2026/04/17/we-beat-googles-zero-knowledge-proof-of-quantum-cryptanalysis/ - https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=9861 "Security Cryptography Whatever" is hosted by Deirdre Connolly (@durumcrustulum), Thomas Ptacek (@tqbf), and David Adrian (@dadrian)

June 15, 2026Episode 61 hr 11 min

Facing the Vulnpocalypse with lcamtuf

We talk to Michał Zalewski (lcamtuf) about the vulnpocalypse and if we even need fuzzers anymore. This episode may be export controlled at a future date. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= uI9CSgB4p9o Transcript: https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2026/06/14/facing-the-vulnpocalypse-with-lcamtuf https://github.com/google/afl https://www.reddit.com/r/claude/comments/1tqtenf/anthropic_said_today_that_mythos_is_coming_to_all/ https://github.com/google/clusterfuzz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XZ_Utils_backdoor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_hotel_bombing https://curl.se/ https://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/patches/7.8/common/025_sack.patch.sig https://www.wired.com/story/last-pass-vulnerability-password-safe/ https://nostarch.com/tangledweb https://nostarch.com/silence.htm https://nostarch.com/practical-doomsday https://nostarch.com/secret-life-of-circuits https://www.youtube.com/c/3blue1brown "Security Cryptography Whatever" is hosted by Deirdre Connolly (@durumcrustulum), Thomas Ptacek (@tqbf), and David Adrian (@dadrian)

March 26, 2026Episode 51 hr 16 min

AI Finds Vulns You Can't With Nicholas Carlini

Returning champion Nicholas Carlini comes back to talk about using Claude for vulnerability research, and the current vulnpocalypse. It's all very high-brow stuff, and the gang learns some bitter lessons. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= _IDbFLu9Ug8 Transcript: https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2026/03/25/ai-bug-finding/ Links: - https://red.anthropic.com/2026/zero-days/ - https://unpromptedcon.org/ - Black-hat LLMs - https://red.anthropic.com/2026/firefox/ "Security Cryptography Whatever" is hosted by Deirdre Connolly (@durumcrustulum), Thomas Ptacek (@tqbf), and David Adrian (@dadrian)

March 10, 2026Episode 48 min

Standardizing Pure PQC

Standardizing cryptography involves a lot of opinions. Luckily, the gamer presidents are on it. Come on, you all know the drill. This is the last time I do this. "Security Cryptography Whatever" is hosted by Deirdre Connolly (@durumcrustulum), Thomas Ptacek (@tqbf), and David Adrian (@dadrian)

February 2, 2026Episode 31 hr 12 min

Python Cryptography Breaks Up with OpenSSL with Paul Kehrer and Alex Gaynor

The Python cryptography module, pyca/cryptography , has mostly been a sane wrapper around a pile of C, so that users get performant cryptography on the many, many platforms Python targets. Therefore its maintainers, Alex Gaynor and Paul Kehrer, have become intimately familiar with OpenSSL. Recently, they declared that after many years of trying to make it work, they announced pyca/cryptography would be moving away from OpenSSL when supporting new functionality and exploring adding other backends instead. We invited them on to tell us about what has happened to OpenSSL, even after the investments and improvements following Heartbleed. No guests on this pod represent anyone besides themselves. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEKBHI3rodY Transcript: https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2026/02/01/python-cryptography-breaks-up-with-openssl Links: - https://cryptography.io/en/latest/statements/state-of-openssl/ - Py Cryptography: https://cryptography.io - https://archive.openssl-conference.org/2025/presentations/Alex_Gaynor_Paul_Kehrer_The_Python_Cryptographic_Authoritys_OpenSSL_Experience.pdf - https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2025/08/16/alex-gaynor/ - https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/media-libs/libsdl - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUIguklWwx0 - https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc9180/ - https://docs.openssl.org/3.3/man3/OSSL_PARAM/ - https://openssl.foundation/ - https://github.com/openssl/openssl/issues/17064 - https://www.feistyduck.com/newsletter/issue_132_openssl_performance_still_under_scrutiny - https://github.com/topazproject/topaz - https://github.com/actions/runner/issues/1069 - https://crystalhotsauce.com/ - https://openssl-library.org/news/vulnerabilities/#CVE-2025-15467 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus - https://boringssl.googlesource.com/boringssl/+/aa202db1d7091b88b80f0a58c630c5c1aefc817d - https://www.ibm.com/products/open-sdk-for-rust-aix - https://dadrian.io/blog/posts/corporate-support-xz/ - https://peps.python.org/ - https://cryptography.io/en/latest/hazmat/primitives/asymmetric/ed448/ - https://go.dev/blog/fips140 - https://dadrian.io/blog/posts/roll-your-own-crypto/ "Security Cryptography Whatever" is hosted by Deirdre Connolly (@durumcrustulum), Thomas Ptacek (@tqbf), and David Adrian (@dadrian)

December 31, 2025Episode 256 min

The IACR Can't Decrypt with Matt Bernhard

The International Association of Cryptologic Research held their regular election using secure voting software called Helios…and lost the keys to decrypt the results, leaving them with no choice but to throw out the vote and call a new election. Hilarity ensues. We welcome special guest Matt Bernhard who actually works on secure voting systems to explain which bits are homomorphically additive or not. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euw_yqAQFI8 Transcript: https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2025/12/30/iacr-helios Links: - NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/world/cryptography-group-lost-election-results.html - IACR Memo: https://www.iacr.org/news/item/27138 - https://www.iacr.org/elections/ - https://vote.heliosvoting.org/faq - https://github.com/Election-Tech-Initiative/electionguard - https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/sec08/tech/full_papers/adida/adida.pdf - https://www.iacr.org/elections/eVoting/about-helios.html - https://www.iacr.org/elections/eVoting/ - https://crypto.ethz.ch/publications/files/CrGeSc97b.pdf - https://electionguard.vote/ - https://eprint.iacr.org/2025/1901 - https://freeandfair.us/blog/open-free-election-technology/ - https://www.starvoting.org/ - https://mbernhard.com/ "Security Cryptography Whatever" is hosted by Deirdre Connolly (@durumcrustulum), Thomas Ptacek (@tqbf), and David Adrian (@dadrian)

October 31, 2025Episode 156 min

Apple’s Memory Integrity Enforcement

Apple announced its new suite of memory security improvements from the top of the stack all the way to the bottom, so we dug through what they did and how they did it (performantly). Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FJwOI2PliU Transcript: https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2025/10/31/apple-mie Links: - https://security.apple.com/blog/memory-integrity-enforcement/ - Secure Page Table Monitor and Trusted Execution Monitor: https://support.apple.com/guide/security/operating-system-integrity-sec8b776536b/1/web/1#secd022396fb - https://security.apple.com/blog/towards-the-next-generation-of-xnu-memory-safety/ - https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/adopting-type-aware-memory-allocation - https://security.apple.com/blog/what-if-we-had-sockpuppet-in-ios16/ - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.09272 - https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2023/11/first-handset-with-mte-on-market.html - https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/adopting-type-aware-memory-allocation - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.09272 - https://spectreattack.com/spectre.pdf "Security Cryptography Whatever" is hosted by Deirdre Connolly (@durumcrustulum), Thomas Ptacek (@tqbf), and David Adrian (@dadrian)