Marcel Keller

Springer publishes a P ≠ NP "proof" and Eric Allender has words to say.

blog.computationalco...

A language model built for the public good ETH Zurich and EPFL will release a large language model (LLM) developed on public infrastructure. Trained on the “Alps” supercomputer at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS), the new LLM ma...

A milestone for open AI: ETH Zurich and EPFL will release a fully open multilingual language model, trained on CSCS’s “Alps” supercomputer. Built for the public good, this model promotes transparency, inclusion, and innovation.

Read more:

More MP-SPDZ users, Dagstuhl edition

@researchorgs.bsky.social We started gathering ROR for affiliations in 2022, and it now provides a way to see where research in cryptology is being done. eprint.iacr.org/geo/index.html

As with all data collection, there are occasional errors.

German SQL found in the first LNCS volume in the Dagstuhl library

German SQL found in the first LNCS volume in the Dagstuhl library

4-panel comic. (1) [Person 1 with ponytail flanked by person with short hair and another person speaking into microphone at podium] PERSON 1: In the early 2010s, researchers found that many major scientific results couldn’t be reproduced. (2) PERSON 1: Over a decade into the replication crisis, we wanted to see if today’s studies have become more robust. (3) PERSON 1: Unfortunately, our replication analysis has found exactly the same problems that those 2010s researchers did. (4) [newspaper with image of speakers from previous panels] Headline: Replication Crisis Solved

Replication Crisis

xkcd.com/3117/

Last Friday Scott Aaronson gave a plenary talk at STOC titled "The Status of Quantum Speedups".
acm-stoc.org/stoc2025/key...
Here are his slides:
www.scottaaronson.com/talks/status...

Uploaded (replaced) a paper to arXiv today for the first time in a while.. and discovered some new features! 🤩

✅ You can choose your compiler (incl. pdflatex)
✅ You can select the top-level TeX file
✅ There is a new "Review Files" stages that detects which files are unused!

🥰 and more: ... 1/3

A chart for quantum computers, of number of qubits versus error rate, on a logarithmic scale. Broadly it shows a large gap between current quantum computers in the bottom left, and a curve in the top right of the resources they need to break RSA.

An out-of-schedule update to my quantum landscape chart: sam-jaques.appspot.com/quantum_land..., prompted by
@craiggidney.bsky.social 's new paper: arxiv.org/abs/2505.15917.

A startling jump (20x) in how easy quantum factoring can be!

Also: much improved web design!

Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences implemented OT on FPGAs and made MASCOT up to 600 times faster: ojs.ub.rub.de/index.php/TC...

Pentagon pizza monitor predicted ‘busy night’ ahead of Israel’s attack on Iran Low gay bar traffic and spike in pizza deliveries before strikes boost theory on Pentagon activity during invasions

The next time you need an example of a real world side channel try this wild article that explains how the absence of any pizza joints in the Pentagon complex creates a one-bit information leak www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

5-panel comic. (1) [teacher with long hair next to whiteboard] TEACHER: I’m supposed to give you the tools to do good science. (2) [teacher addressing students] But what *are* those tools? Methodology is hard and there are so many ways to get incorrect results. What is the magic ingredient that makes for good science? (3) TEACHER: To figure it out, I ran a regression with all the factors people say are important: [embedded list in sub-panel, cut off at end] Outcome variable: correct scientific results. Predictors: collaboration; skepticism of others’ claims; questioning your own beliefs; trying to falsify hypotheses; checking citations; statistical rigor; blinded analysis; financial disclosure; open data (4) TEACHER: The regression says two ingredients are the most crucial: 1) genuine curiosity about the answer to a question, and 2) ammonium hydroxide. (5) STUDENT: Wait, why did *ammonia* score so high? How did it even get on the list? LONG HAIR: ...And now you’re doing good science!

Good Science

xkcd.com/3101/

This is the inevitable path of the APC model. For-profit and values-misaligned publishers are bad for science and society.

So what can you do? Here are 4 things.

Apple announces that TLS client connections in version 26+ will be using hybrid PQ X25519MLKEM768 by default

support.apple.com/en-us/122756

GitHub - veorq/awesome-post-quantum: A curated list of resources about post-quantum cryptography A curated list of resources about post-quantum cryptography - veorq/awesome-post-quantum

periodic reminder about: github.com/veorq/awesom..., PRs and Issues are welcome

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The Future of Scientific Publishing - survey

We are reviewing the current state of scientific publishing, and we want to hear from researchers on their perceptions of publishing in the current context and how it might develop in future. Complete our short survey now:

Anonymous GitHub Anonymize your repository in 5 min as 46,631 users already did. Usage Login with Github access your dashboard and anonymize your repositories. Complete the list of terms that will be anonymized. Anonymize and share your link in your double-anonymized paper. Example of an anonymized repository: https://anonymous.4open.science/r/840c8c57-3c32-451e-bf12-0e20be300389/.

“Anonymous GitHub” — I just discovered this today. What a great idea!! (Apparently I am the 46,631ˢᵗ to find it.)

Provides an anonymized portal to your GitHub respiratory suitable for submission to double-blind review for research conference papers or journal articles.

anonymous.4open.science

GitHub - malb/lattice-estimator: An attempt at a new LWE estimator An attempt at a new LWE estimator. Contribute to malb/lattice-estimator development by creating an account on GitHub.

Eamonn and I received a Zama Cryptanalysis Grant to help with the lattice estimator github.com/malb/lattice.... We hope to hire interns to work on the estimator over two periods over the next 18 months.

Zama are still taking applications for this grant, see here: www.zama.ai/post/announc...

Release Protocols with function-dependent preprocessing · data61/MP-SPDZ Add protocols with function-dependent preprocessing (https://eprint.iacr.org/2025/919) Parallelize shuffling (@vincent-ehrmanntraut) More efficient probabilistic truncation in Rep3 More efficient b...

The latest version of MP-SPDZ adds two protocols with function-dependent protocols. Also in the bag is functionality that helps finding papers and code locations relevant to the computation at hand. github.com/data61/MP-SP...

Scientists with ADHD speak up: when fire meets focus Researchers with ADHD discuss its peaks and valleys and how they structure their work lives to succeed.

This is such an excellent piece on navigating ADHD in science by @plantnerd.bsky.social for @nature.com . Thank you so much!! Also, happy I could contribute as an interviewee. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

supervision | Muhammed Esgin 🌟 𝐏𝐡𝐃 and 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐃𝐨𝐜 Opportunities in Post-Quantum Cryptography 🌟 The cybersecurity group at Monash Information Technology has openings for PhD and PostDoc positions, fully funded by an Australian Rese...

www.linkedin.com/posts/mfesgi...

PhD and postdoc opportunities in post quantum cryptography at Monash University. Esgin is an amazing researcher. Do apply if you are interested.

My latest paper investigates the relationship between semi-honest 3PC with replicated secret sharing and similar schemes with function-dependent preprocessing, and I conclude that the additional cost is unlikely to justify the benefits of the latter.

A new use of the asterisk in the paper author list for credit assignment

Incidentally, if your Signal is now flooded with work chats, you can organize chats into folders
Settings->Chats->Chat Folders. Looks like its Android only for now.

Honoured to be invited as a keynote speaker at the workshop on Systems for MPC to share the latest progress on MP-SPDZ: www.bu.edu/riscs/events...

Policy makers:
Let's count the number of publications to assess research quality!

Scientific community:
OK!

...

Total annual scientific publications rose from 2 million (2010) to 3.3 million (2022).

I am first-gen (and I think fair to say reasonably successful in my field), and I think one thing that helped a lot was having supervisors, both in undergrad and PhD, who were also first-gen. Still it was a mountain of bullshit, and it still is, but if it helps anyone like me: It gets easier.

And they knew how to? After all, it came out closer to the moon landing than to today.