Martin R. Albrecht

Martin R. Albrecht

@malb.bsky.social

Cryptography Professor at King's College London and Principal Research Scientist at SandboxAQ. Erdős–Bacon Number: 6. He/him or they/them. https://malb.io

941 followers309 following136 posts

Martin R. Albrecht
@malb.bsky.social

Apropos of nothing, a few links on the "Spy Cops" scandal in the UK. - www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023... - www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022... - www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021... - www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020... - www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020...

theguardian.com‘Spy cops’ operations against leftwing groups unjustified, inquiry findsReport says officers collected details of activists’ sexuality and bank accounts, and operations should have been shut down

Martin R. Albrecht reposted

P(Doomien) Miller
@damienmiller.bsky.social

Anthropic may not have intended to write an excellent ad for GLM 5.3, but that's what they did. www.anthropic.com/research/glm... Unlike Mythos, I might actually have a chance at using GLM for defensive research. Anthropic didn't reply to any of my requests for Mythos access for use on OpenSSH.

anthropic.comGLM-5.3 and the spread of advanced cyber capabilitiesGLM-5.3 can autonomously build end-to-end cyber exploits, but unlike other frontier models, it was released without meaningful safeguards to limit misuse.

Martin R. Albrecht reposted

John Stott
@jpsastro.bsky.social

Had a UKRI funded grant proposal rejected at the "AI triage stage". "This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review." 🧪 #academicsky

Martin R. Albrecht reposted

Miro Haller
@mirohaller.bsky.social

We finally finished the universal signature forgery for 1024-bit RSA! 2^32 oracle queries, 1200 core years precomputation, 180 core years for an individual forgery, and 3 years of human labor (no AI involved) by Laura, Adam, Nadia, Emmanuel and me to pull of this computation against real HSMs.

Emmanuel Thomé@emmanuelthome.bsky.social

Forging 1024-bit RSA signatures in nearly SNFS time Hand over your HSM for some time, and we can forge signatures for its key. Arbitrary signatures. Forever. github.com/ucsd-hacc/NS...

github.comGitHub - ucsd-hacc/NSNFSSSFSFN: Nearly SNFS-Speed Signature Forgery Sans Factoring NNearly SNFS-Speed Signature Forgery Sans Factoring N - ucsd-hacc/NSNFSSSFSFN

Martin R. Albrecht reposted

Kenny Paterson
@kennyog.bsky.social

TL;DR: using compression before encryption is much weaker than we thought. Tiny length differences can be amplified - almost without limit - and noise-based or bucketization countermeasures are then easy to bypass. Joint work with @prefix-free.bsky.social and Lenka Mareková, to appear at CCS 2026.

ePrint Updates@eprint.ing.bot

Criminology: Refined Techniques for Compression Side-Channel Attacks (Yuanming Song, Lenka Mareková, Kenneth G. Paterson) ia.cr/2026/1972

Martin R. Albrecht reposted

Kenny Paterson
@kennyog.bsky.social

Our latest “Crypto in the Wild” project, analysing secure email gateways. We give 29 cryptographic attacks on 4 different products, from SEPPmail, Cisco, Proton and CipherMail. Paper to appear at ACM CCS 2026.

ePrint Updates@eprint.ing.bot

Why Johnny Should Not Delegate Email Encryption to Gateways (Andris Suter-Dörig, Matteo Scarlata, Kenneth G. Paterson) ia.cr/2026/1911

Martin R. Albrecht
@malb.bsky.social

Worth a read on who/what Autistici/Inventati is, the tech collective designated as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" by the US cavallette.noblogs.org/2026/08/10083

cavallette.noblogs.org[REPOST] The Server Called Paranoia: Defend Autistici/Inventati Before September 25Ripubblichiamo (in inglese) un bel post di Sabot Media che ripercorre la nostra storia e la collega a quanto sta avvenendo con la nostra iscrizione nella lista delle organizzazioni globali terroristic...

Martin R. Albrecht reposted

Michael A. Specter 👻
@mikespecter.com

We also bought EncroChat's original domain (encrochat.ch) --- it now hosts our paper and other info.

encrochat.chA Real-World Law-Enforcement Hack: The Case of Encrochat
Martin R. Albrecht@malb.bsky.social

Also, the article makes it sound as if our work is mostly concerned with the legal side of the Encrochat cases, but we gave a comprehensive technical account: eprint.iacr.org/2026/1319 We also discuss those open questions. We didn't have access to a device/image, limiting what we could establish.

eprint.iacr.orgA Real-World Law-Enforcement Hack: The Case of EncrochatIn 2020, a coordinated law-enforcement effort infiltrated Encrochat, an end-to-end encrypted service provider, exfiltrating historical and real-time data and metadata over months. Encrochat was used e...
Martin R. Albrecht
@malb.bsky.social

As funny as it is that they simply dropped frida.re on Encrochat devices, to me the two big Encrochat questions that still aren't resolved are:

frida.reFrida • A world-class dynamic instrumentation toolkitObserve and reprogram running programs on Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux, iOS, watchOS, tvOS, Android, FreeBSD, and QNX
William Goodwin @billgoodwin.bsky.social

Revealed: How French cyber spies turned to GitHub to hack the EncroChat phone network used by organised criminals www.computerweekly.com/news/3666493...

computerweekly.comRevealed: Cyber spies used malware from GitHub to hack EncroChat cryptophone network | Computer WeeklyComputer Weekly reveals for the first time how French cyber spies hacked EncroChat phones used by organised crime groups.
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Martin R. Albrecht
@malb.bsky.social

Also, the article makes it sound as if our work is mostly concerned with the legal side of the Encrochat cases, but we gave a comprehensive technical account: eprint.iacr.org/2026/1319 We also discuss those open questions. We didn't have access to a device/image, limiting what we could establish.

eprint.iacr.orgA Real-World Law-Enforcement Hack: The Case of EncrochatIn 2020, a coordinated law-enforcement effort infiltrated Encrochat, an end-to-end encrypted service provider, exfiltrating historical and real-time data and metadata over months. Encrochat was used e...
Martin R. Albrecht
@malb.bsky.social

- How did they get the malware on the devices? Presumably by having APK signing keys? How did they get them? - If they had signing keys, why did they need a privilege escalation? Did they only have signing keys for unprivileged apps?

Martin R. Albrecht
@malb.bsky.social

It would be easy to make progress on these questions given even an uninfected Encrochat device or just an image of the OS: by asking what verification keys are associated with what application.

Martin R. Albrecht reposted

Chris Peikert
@chrispeikert.bsky.social

This is a very cool and exciting discovery by Claude Mythos! It found a serious 𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 attack on the post-quantum signature scheme HAWK, an "on-ramp" candidate for potential NIST standardization. www.anthropic.com/research/dis...

anthropic.comDiscovering cryptographic weaknesses with ClaudeAnthropic researchers find weaknesses in cryptographic algorithms with Claude Mythos Preview

Martin R. Albrecht reposted

Signal
@signal.org

Our statement on the UK gov't's demand that all content on all devices sold or used in the UK be scanned, on the presumption of nudity, using a dystopian combination of age verification & content scanning. This proposal will not safeguard children. It endangers us all. signal.org/blog/pdfs/20...

signal.orgsignal.org
Martin R. Albrecht
@malb.bsky.social

I'm reading some papers on AI safety (don't ask). Is the entire field really so naive that they think speaking of "human values" makes sense? Have these people not switched on the news ever? I know we computer scientists do not excell at thinking about the actual world we live in, but this is extra.

Martin R. Albrecht reposted

Richard Barnes
@ipv.sx

Replying to @ipv.sx

Similar to the E2E encryption debates in that nerding harder will not square the policy circle. Dissimilar to the E2E encryption debates in that the policy world is proceeding nonetheless, as @matthewdgreen.bsky.social said at the top.

Martin R. Albrecht
@malb.bsky.social

‘They singled out non-white, foreign-born workers’: the restaurants raided by Britain’s version of ICE www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

theguardian.com‘They singled out non-white, foreign-born workers’: the restaurants raided by Britain’s version of ICEThey’re not armed and they keep a relatively low profile. But the Home Office’s immigration compliance and enforcement officers have searched thousands of business in pursuit of illegal workers. Are t...

Martin R. Albrecht reposted

Kien Tuong Truong
@kientuong114.bsky.social

Just finished presenting this work at Real World Crypto in Taipei :) TL;DR: We found 2 attacks on Signal (Android, Desktop) where a malicious server can inject messages in conversations. Super fun project! Thanks a bunch to Noemi Terzo, @kennyog.bsky.social, and @cryptojedi.bsky.social

ePrint Updates@eprint.ing.bot

Signal Lost (Integrity): The Signal App is More than the Sum of its Protocols (Kien Tuong Truong, Noemi Terzo, Kenneth G. Paterson) ia.cr/2026/484

Martin R. Albrecht reposted

Nadim Kobeissi
@nadim.computer

I just donated to help equip Lebanon's first responders and firefighters with essential life-saving supplies to help them deal with the massive crises unfolding due to Israeli attacks on civilian areas. Please consider donating: fundahope.com/en/campaigns...

fundahope.comEquipping Lebanon's First Responders 2026March 2026: We are fundraising to equip Lebanon’s national first responders - The Civil Defense (الدفاع المدني) with essential and life-saving supp

Martin R. Albrecht reposted

Thomas Ptacek
@sockpuppet.org

"presenting a cornucopia of practical attacks". These are my favorite words ever to have occurred in a cryptography paper.

Martin R. Albrecht
@malb.bsky.social

Apropos of nothing, here's a piece on Reform's plans for a British ICE: shado-mag.com/articles/opi... Here's the policy document: web.archive.org/web/20260127... Here's a piece on the Labour Government's practice of emulating the US' celebration of brutality: www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

shado-mag.comInside Reform’s plans for a fascist takeoverIn today's article shado editor Elia Ayoub discusses Reform’s “Operation Restore Justice”, the risks of a British ICE and how we can resist.