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Zero Knowledge Proofs: An illustrated primer
One of the best things about modern cryptography is the beautiful terminology. You could start any number of punk bands (or Tumblrs) named after cryptography terms like ‘hard-core predicate&#…
Matthew Green
Some random thoughts about crypto. Notes from a course I teach. Pictures of my dachshunds.
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Visit blog.cryptographyengineering.com → RSS feedOn Hacker News Aug 2012 – Aug 2026
Security & Privacy 50Networking & Internet 15Society, Policy & Culture 11Math & Algorithms 10Tools & Productivity 3Open Source 3
32
The strange story of “Extended Random”
Yesterday, David Benjamin posted a pretty esoteric note on the IETF’s TLS mailing list. At a superficial level, the post describes some seizure-inducingly boring flaws in older Canon printers…
33
Secure Computing for Journalists
This morning on Twitter, Buzzfeed editor Miriam Elder asks the following question: Possibly stupid question: is the Signal desktop client as secure as the mobile app? — Miriam Elder (@MiriamElder) …
34
Can Apple read your iMessages?
About a year ago I wrote a short post urging Apple to publish the technical details of iMessage encryption. I’d love tell you that Apple saw my influential crypto blogging and fell all over t…
35
Another update on the Truecrypt audit
There’s a story on Hacker News asking what the hell is going on with the Truecrypt audit. I think that’s a fair question, since we have been awfully quiet lately. To everyone who donate…
36
Here come the encryption apps
It seems like these days I can’t eat breakfast without reading about some new encryption app that will (supposedly) revolutionize our communications — while making tyrannical regimes fa…
37
Fooling around with encrypted reasoning blobs
Update August 11, 2026: A group of researchers from all over Europe were inspired by this post, and actually turned it into a real working attack! Check out their writeup and paper here. This is a …
38
Dear Apple: Please set iMessage free
Normally I avoid complaining about Apple because (a) there are plenty of other people carrying that flag, and (b) I honestly like Apple and own numerous lovely iProducts. I’m even using one t…
39
Attack of the Week: Group Messaging in WhatsApp and Signal
If you’ve read this blog before, you know that secure messaging is one of my favorite topics. However, recently I’ve been a bit disappointed. My sadness comes from the fact that lately …
40
A riddle wrapped in a curve
If you’re looking for a nice dose of crypto conspiracy theorizing and want to read a paper by some very knowledgeable cryptographers, I have just the paper for you. Titled “A Riddle Wrapped in an E…
41
Attack of the Week: Apple iMessage
Today’s Washington Post has a story entitled “Johns Hopkins researchers poke a hole in Apple’s encryption”, which describes the results of some research my students and I have bee…
42
Attack of the week: DUHK
Before we get started, fair warning: this is going to be a post about a fairly absurd (but non-trivial!) attack on cryptographic systems. But that’s ok, because it’s based on a fairly a…
43
Let’s talk about PAKE
The first rule of PAKE is: nobody ever wants to talk about PAKE. The second rule of PAKE is that this is a shame, because PAKE — which stands for Password Authenticated Key Exchange — is actually o…
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Zero Knowledge Proofs: An illustrated primer (2014)
One of the best things about modern cryptography is the beautiful terminology. You could start any number of punk bands (or Tumblrs) named after cryptography terms like ‘hard-core predicate&#…
45
A very casual introduction to Fully Homomorphic Encryption (2012)
Craig Gentry on board the mothership. (credit) A couple of weeks ago I polled readers for the subjects that they were interested in. You gave me some excellent responses, and I promise they’r…
46
RSA warns developers not to use RSA products
In today’s news of the weird, RSA (a division of EMC) has recommended that developers desist from using the (allegedly) ‘backdoored’ Dual_EC_DRBG random number generator — w…
47
A bit more on Twitter/X's new encrypted messaging
Update 6/10: Based on a short conversation with an engineering lead at X, some of the devices used at X are claimed to be using HSMs. See more further below. Matthew Garrett has a nice post about T…
48
Patching is hard; so what?
It’s now been about a week since Equifax announced the record-breaking breach that affected 143 million Americans. We still don’t know enough — but a few details have begun to com…
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Hopefully the last post I'll ever write on Dual EC DRBG
I’ve been working on some other blog posts, including a conclusion of (or at least an installment in) this exciting series on zero knowledge proofs. That’s coming soon, but first I want…
50
Beyond public key encryption
One of the saddest and most fascinating things about applied cryptography is how little cryptography we actually use. This is not to say that cryptography isn’t widely used in industry —…
51
A Few Thoughts on Ray Ozzie’s “Clear” Proposal
Yesterday I happened upon a Wired piece by Steven Levy that covers Ray Ozzie’s proposal for “CLEAR”. I’m quoted at the end of the piece (saying nothing much), so I knew the piece was coming. …
52
What’s the matter with PGP?
Last Thursday, Yahoo announced their plans to support end-to-end encryption using a fork of Google’s end-to-end email extension. This is a Big Deal. With providers like Google and Yahoo onboa…