Friday Squid Blogging: Triassic Kraken

Research paper: "Triassic Kraken: The Berlin Ichthyosaur Death Assemblage Interpreted as a Giant Cephalopod Midden": Abstract: The Luning Formation at Berlin Ichthyosaur State Park, Nevada, hosts a puzzling assemblage of at least 9 huge (≤14 m) juxtaposed ichthyosaurs (Shonisaurus popularis). Shonisaurs were cephalopod eating predators comparable to sperm whales (Physeter). Hypotheses presented to explain the apparent mass mortality at the… Continue reading Friday Squid Blogging: Triassic Kraken

Mapping Security and Privacy Research across the Decades

This is really interesting: "A Data-Driven Reflection on 36 Years of Security and Privacy Research," by Aniqua Baset and Tamara Denning: Abstract: Meta-research—research about research—allows us, as a community, to examine trends in our research and make informed decisions regarding the course of our future research activities. Additionally, overviews of past research are particularly useful for researchers or conferences new… Continue reading Mapping Security and Privacy Research across the Decades

Using Machine Learning to Detect IP Hijacking

This is interesting research: In a BGP hijack, a malicious actor convinces nearby networks that the best path to reach a specific IP address is through their network. That’s unfortunately not very hard to do, since BGP itself doesn’t have any security procedures for validating that a message is actually coming from the place it says it’s coming from. […]… Continue reading Using Machine Learning to Detect IP Hijacking

Factoring 2048-bit Numbers Using 20 Million Qubits

This theoretical paper shows how to factor 2048-bit RSA moduli with a 20-million qubit quantum computer in eight hours. It’s interesting work, but I don’t want overstate the risk. We know from Shor’s Algorithm that both factoring and discrete logs are … Continue reading Factoring 2048-bit Numbers Using 20 Million Qubits

Factoring 2048-bit Numbers Using 20 Million Qubits

This theoretical paper shows how to factor 2048-bit RSA moduli with a 20-million qubit quantum computer in eight hours. It’s interesting work, but I don’t want overstate the risk. We know from Shor’s Algorithm that both factoring and discrete logs are easy to solve on a large, working quantum computer. Both of those are currently beyond our technological abilities. We… Continue reading Factoring 2048-bit Numbers Using 20 Million Qubits

More Cryptanalysis of Solitaire

In 1999, I invented the Solitaire encryption algorithm, designed to manually encrypt data using a deck of cards. It was written into the plot of Neal Stephenson’s novel Cryptonomicon, and I even wrote an afterward to the book describing the cipher. I don’t talk about it much, mostly because I made a dumb mistake that resulted in the algorithm not… Continue reading More Cryptanalysis of Solitaire