Mikhail Kudinov

Oh my goodness!!

I was deeply humbled by the unbelievably positive reaction to my talk at Real World Crypto 2026 in Taipei about my experiences teaching applied cryptography in post-crisis Lebanon. The full video for the talk is now available: www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_Hx...

Come be part of Cedarcrypt, our historic new initiative to grow cryptography research, development and representation in the Levant region! We're seeking speakers and workshop leaders: our call for submissions is open! Learn more: cedarcrypt.org Please spread the word!

Stumbled upon some art from one of my favorite childhood cartoons: Treasure Planet. What a great adaptation of Treasure Island. Should go rewatch it.

Aborting Random Oracles: How to Build them, How to Use them (Gottfried Herold, Dmitry Khovratovich, Mikhail Kudinov, Stefano Tessaro, Benedikt Wagner) ia.cr/2026/016

keymaterial.net/2025/12/13/a... Sophie Schmieg’s “very unscientific guide” to PQC security provides a nice summary of the security of PQ schemes. I am not sure if I would personally put Codes below the Lattices, but I am also not an expert in Codes.

NEW EPISODE! The IACR lost the keys to decrypt their encrypted election results. We welcome Matt Bernhard who works on secure voting systems to explain which Helios bits are homomorphically additive or not and more: securitycryptographywhatever.com/2025/12/30/i... www.youtube.com/watch?v=euw_...

AsiaCrypt Afterparty 🌊

Interesting read lawrencecpaulson.github.io//2025/12/05/...

More ties between Durov and Russia: The FT says Telegram founder invited Jan Marsalek to invest in Telegram’s TON crypto. Marsalek now wanted in Europe for large-scale fraud and identified as an agent who coordinated Russian espionage operations in Europe. “Mr. Freedom of speech”

Should we add a vote for the best talk award for the iacr conferences? Gives a bit more motivation for the speakers to polish their talks.

Will be giving a talk today at AsiaCrypt 2025 in Melbourne, come see! Did you know you can use salts as short as 72 bits for hash-and-sign? We’ll be sharing our results on the security of hash functions in the QROM, including new tools for working in the QROM and tight bounds for M-eTCR.

We take a look at hash-based schemes, and how they fit in Bitcoin. The paper gives a broad overview of different schemes, including SPHINCS+ and several recent modification. For readers seeking a gentle introduction to hash-based schemes, we hope this work offers a helpful starting point.

Thought HB schemes were running out of surprises, but new ideas keep coming. We recently looked at the “At the Top of the Hypercube” encoding for faster Winternitz-style verification, and now Abri & Katz show new optimizations for few-time signatures eprint.iacr.org/2025/2069! Still room to improve!

🎓 After 4 years, 7 papers, countless joyful moments, and meeting so many great people along the way, I’m excited to share that I’ve officially obtained my PhD! It’s been an incredible journey of learning, persistence, and growth. My thesis is now available here: 🔗 pure.tue.nl/ws/portalfil...

We are alarmed by reports that Germany is on the verge of a catastrophic about-face, reversing its longstanding and principled opposition to the EU’s Chat Control proposal which, if passed, could spell the end of the right to privacy in Europe. signal.org/blog/pdfs/ge...

I’m flagging this nice book/paper on FHE schemes not necessarily because it’s correct and I endorse it, but because it looks pretty useful. arxiv.org/pdf/2503.05136

CryptoCorgi

Over 500 cryptographers warn the EU draft “Chat Control” could weaken end‑to‑end encryption. The EU council votes on the Danish text on Sep 12, 2025. https://getnews.me/eu-chat-control-criticized-by-500-cryptographers-over-privacy-risks/ #euchatcontrol #privacy #cryptography

I'm thrilled to announce that after months of intensive work, the complete materials for my Applied Cryptography course at the American University of Beirut are now finished: both Part 1 (Provable Security) and Part 2 (Real-World Cryptography)!

I made a video about my upcoming applied cryptography course: youtu.be/z6kK7rIbyB0

Crypto 2025 is just around the corner! Check out the full program here: crypto.iacr.org/2025/program... Join us on Monday for our talk where we explore the tradeoffs of hash-based signatures. We then apply these findings to propose post-quantum Ethereum PoS signatures: eprint.iacr.org/2025/1332

Technical Note: LeanSig for Post-Quantum Ethereum (Justin Drake, Dmitry Khovratovich, Mikhail Kudinov, Benedikt Wagner) ia.cr/2025/1332

This battle will keep playing out over and over again until they achieve something that their own citizens have made it clear they don’t want. www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-priv...

PewDiePie’s evolution into a tech geek is so cool! His recent video dives deep into privacy concerns and surveillance issues, while being still fun to watch. I think these are the topics that couldn’t be more relevant today. Highly recommend watching his take on it: 🔗 youtu.be/u_Lxkt50xOg?...

Single author, fifteen pages, reduces the bit complexity of millenia-old UOV instances!!

Apple announces that TLS client connections in version 26+ will be using hybrid PQ X25519MLKEM768 by default support.apple.com/en-us/122756

At the Top of the Hypercube – Better Size-Time Tradeoffs for Hash-Based Signatures (Dmitry Khovratovich, Mikhail Kudinov, Benedikt Wagner) ia.cr/2025/889

Excited to be heading to #Eurocrypt2025 in Madrid soon! I’ll be speaking at Algebraic Hash Cryptanalysis Days on Security Requirements in the Context of Hash-Based Signatures. Catch me at the affiliated events or during the main conference. Let’s connect! #Cryptography #Madrid

🎤 My talk from #PQCrypto2025 is now live on YouTube! I discussed rejection types in KEMs. Why they matter, how they impact security and which one should you choose. Check it out & let me know your thoughts! 👇 📺 youtu.be/W-gUd_qTUs4?... #PostQuantum #Cryptography #KEMs

My Crypto Learning Journey: Helpful Resources I’ve compiled a list of materials that helped me the most in my cryptography journey. The list will keep growing—feel free to suggest your favorites! error0024.github.io/posts/2025/0...

Hybrid-query bounds with partial input control - framework and application to tight M-eTCR (Andreas Hülsing, Mikhail Kudinov, Christian Majenz) ia.cr/2025/633

CAKE requires programming - On the provable post-quantum security of (O)CAKE (Kathrin Hövelmanns, Andreas Hülsing, Mikhail Kudinov, Silvia Ritsch) ia.cr/2025/458