Nick Sullivan

The digital identity space is approaching a dangerous precipice.

newdesigncongress.org/en/note/2025...

RWC 2026 call for papers Real World Crypto Symposium

The Call for Contributed Talks is now open for RWC 2026! And the deadline for submissions is now Oct. 10, 2025.
rwc.iacr.org/2026/contrib...

🏗️ A TALE OF THREE BRIDGES AND THE COMING QUANTUM RECKONING | Nick Sullivan 🏗️ A TALE OF THREE BRIDGES AND THE COMING QUANTUM RECKONING Two months ago in Berlin I delivered a keynote on post‑quantum cryptography at Visa Risk Reset, an invitation‑only summit for CROs, CISOs, r...

Here are the slides from my recent keynote on post-quantum cryptography and Q-Day.

www.linkedin.com/posts/ntsull...

Good read: a detailed and accessible report published on @chinafile by Jessica Batke and Laura Edelson on China's internet censorship system, known as the "Locknet"

locknet.chinafile.com/the-locknet/...

Fascinating House Judiciary hearing going on live right now: Influence on Americans' Data Through the CLOUD Act. Big focus on the UK and Apple's E2E backup system. www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJgw...

I’m going to hold off on using the term artificial intelligence to describe this current generation of products and just call them what they are: language models. Until they gain mathematical and symbolic reasoning skills, the term “intelligence” is a stretch.

Germ is launching support for open-source AT Protocol and the Bluesky platform in their Germ messenger. Everything I want in a messaging app: strong encryption, clean UX, and trust & safety tied to social identity. A big move for private messaging and I can't be prouder to be an advisor.

These last 5 weeks have been a thrill and a half. Now fly me home…

RWC 2025 YouTube video by Real World Crypto

For those following from home (or still in your hotel rooms), here’s the link for the live stream:

youtube.com/live/R1NEfuv...

Excited to share that we’ve just updated the CFRG Process documentation, clarifying guidelines on document lifecycle, roles, and collaboration within the CFRG. If you’re proposing or managing CFRG work, this is essential reading!

wiki.ietf.org/en/group/cfr...

I had to go visit her. She’s glorious.
#moodeng

RCS texting updates will bring end-to-end encryption to green bubble chats Lack of encryption was one SMS shortcoming that RCS was created to solve.

If you haven't been tracking, RCS texting is rolling out end-to-end encryption using MLS. This is a huge triumph of the IETF and the collaborative approach to creating internet-grade protocols championed there.

arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025...

There’s going to be an impedance mismatch when people treat an organization as if it’s supposed to just do what they want instead of understanding what it’s actually chartered to do and why. In this case thinking the CFRG is a standards publication venue and not an advisory group for the IETF.

This is really cool!

Have you also considered adding information about errata? It would be useful to identify whether erratas are not being handled quickly at a glance. It could also be informative to compare the number of erratas an RFC receives as a quality proxy to compare with time-to-publish.

The claim that no "substantive" changes were incorporated is more a testament to the editors' reluctance to take suggestions from the research group than to any process failures.

Revisionist history. There were over 50 emails on the list discussing the draft and many very active discussions. The diff itself shows how much changed:

author-tools.ietf.org/iddiff?url1=...

This is tomorrow. If you’re going, let me know! surf.mozilla.org/events/2025/...

Yep, e-mail me and I'll connect you.

URnetwork - Say goodbye to your VPN and hello to a P2P powered web | Product Hunt We’re rebuilding the internet so that you can say goodbye to your VPN and never again make the tradeoff between the content you want and privacy. Introducing URnetwork, a decentralized network powered...

URnetwork, a new privacy-focused VPN I’ve been helping with just launched on ProductHunt! Check it out, it’s slick.

www.producthunt.com/posts/urnetw...

I’m attending RightsCon in Taipei next week. Want to talk encryption, censorship and privacy? Let me know.

RWC 2025 program Real World Crypto Symposium

The tentative program for Real World Crypto 2025 is live!

rwc.iacr.org/2025/program...

A huge thanks to my co-chair @malb.bsky.social and all the amazing program committee members for helping put this together. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone in Sofia!

#realworldcrypto

RWC 2025 accepted papers Real World Crypto Symposium

The list of accepted talk at @rwc.iacr.org is now available: rwc.iacr.org/2025/accepte... Early registration ends 26 February. CC: programme co-chair @nicksullivan.org

Everyone knows your location How I tracked myself down using leaked location data in the in-app ads, and what I found along the way.

Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads - tim.sh

timsh.org/tracking-mys...

Censorship & Safeguards: Strengthening Internet Protocols | Nick Sullivan This podcast series examines how internet censorship shapes global access to information and the technical safeguards needed to ensure a free and open web. We dive into the mechanics of filtering, cir...

Security isn't just confidentiality—availability matters too. That's why I'm joining @cendemtech.bsky.social part-time as a Visiting Fellow to work on censorship resistance and privacy online. I’ve been turning my literature review into a podcast with help from AI if you want to follow along.

“Premature optimization is the root of all evil” said Knuth. With LLMs, premature deployment is the root of all costs. Dumping hundreds of millions into training when there are yet-to-be implemented algorithmic improvements is burning investor capital and wasting energy at incredible rates.

Essay: “Securing Model Weights” considered pointless | Lessons learned from (failed) protection of the Unix source code, et al… Quote from “Securing AI Model Weights: Preventing Theft and Misuse of Frontier Models” “As frontier [AI] models — that is, models that match or exceed the capabilities of the most…

Essay: “Securing Model Weights” considered pointless | Lessons learned from (failed) protection of the Unix source code, et al…
https://alecmuffett.com/article/111066
#DeepSeek #ai #copyright #llm #openai #regulation #unix

SplinterCon - communications with and within isolated networks A conference dedicated to technology for reaching isolated networks and solutions for users stuck inside national intranets.

We’re doing another SplinterCon, this time in Berlin on December 9-11! If you’re not familiar, this is an event in which participants discuss the increasing balkanization of the internet and the tools that help keep these splintered networks connected.

splintercon.net

Cryptography 101 with Alfred Menezes Video lectures, notes, and exercises in all areas of applied cryptography

If you’re interested in getting started in cryptography, check out the crypto 101 course by Dr. Alfred Menezes from UWaterloo.
cryptography101.ca
He’s planning on publishing the lectures from his Applied Cryptography course, which was my introduction to the field. Highly recommended.

RWC 2025 in Sofia is going to be 🔥
I'm excited to be the co-chair (along with @martinralbrecht) of the program committee this year. We have an amazing group of reviewers this year, and we're looking forward to reading the strongest batch of talk submissions yet.
#realworldcrypto

Rebooting San Francisco royalty: Emperor Norton meets GenAI An experiment at the intersection of history, local culture, and bleeding edge artificial intelligence

And now he's back! medium.com/clog/rebooti...