Cryptography FM

In-depth, substantive discussions on the latest news and research in applied cryptography.

About the show

Cryptography FM is a regular podcast with news and a featured interview covering the latest developments in theoretical and applied cryptography. Whether it's a new innovative paper on lattice-based cryptography or a novel attack on a secure messaging protocol, we'll get the people behind it on Cryptography FM.

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Episodes

  • Episode 24: CryptoHack's Collection of Cryptic Conundrums!

    February 27th, 2023  |  49 mins 18 secs
    learning

    For several years, CryptoHack has been a free platform for learning modern cryptography through fun and challenging programming puzzles. From toy ciphers to post-quantum cryptography, CryptoHack has a wide-ranging and ever increasing library of puzzles for both the aspiring and accomplished cryptographer. On this episode, Nadim and Lucas are joined by Giacomo Pope and Laurence Tennant, the founders of CryptoHack, to discuss how the platform came to be, and how it evolved, as well as how to improve cryptographic pedagogy more broadly.

  • Episode 23: Psychic Signatures in Java!

    January 25th, 2023  |  53 mins 20 secs
    signatures

    Nadim and Lucas talk to Neil Madden about his discovery of the "Psychic Signatures" vulnerability in Java, allowing attackers to completely bypass cryptographic signature checks in Java platforms in highly sensitive security contexts.

  • Episode 22: Three Lessons from Threema: Breaking a Secure Messenger!

    January 16th, 2023  |  52 mins 12 secs
    secure messaging

    Threema is a Swiss encrypted messaging application. It has more than 10 million users and more than 7000 on-premise customers. Prominent users of Threema include the Swiss Government and the Swiss Army, as well as the current Chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz. Threema has been widely advertised as a secure alternative to other messengers.

    Kenny, Kien and Matteo from the ETH Zurich Applied Cryptography Group present seven attacks against the cryptographic protocols used by Threema, in three distinct threat models. All the attacks are accompanied by proof-of-concept implementations that demonstrate their feasibility in practice.

  • Episode 21: Proving Fundamental Equivalencies in Isogeny Mathematics!

    August 24th, 2021  |  46 mins 52 secs
    isogenies

    Benjamin Wesolowski talks about his latest paper in which he mathematically proved that the two fundamental problems underlying isogeny-based cryptography are equivalent.

  • Episode 20: Cryptanalysis of GPRS: GEA-1 and GEA-2!

    July 20th, 2021  |  42 mins 56 secs
    cryptanalysis, gprs

    Were GPRS's encryption ciphers deliberately backdoored? Nadim discusses this question with cryptanalysts Gaëtan Leurent and Håvard Raddum.

  • Episode 19: Cross-Protocol Attacks on TLS with ALPACA!

    July 12th, 2021  |  41 mins 44 secs
    tls

    Nadim discusses a new line of cross-protocol attacks on TLS with Marcus Brinkmann and Robert Merget, made possible via the new ALPACA Attack, research published this year at the USENIX Security Symposium.

  • Episode 18: Optimizing Cryptography for Microcontrollers!

    June 23rd, 2021  |  36 mins 56 secs
    low-level cryptography, software implementations

    Nadim talks with Peter Schwabe and Matthias Kannwischer about the considerations — both in terms of security and performance — when implementing cryptographic primitives for low-level and embedded platforms

  • Episode 17: Breaking Wi-Fi With Frame Attacks!

    June 1st, 2021  |  35 mins 58 secs
    wi-fi

    Mathy Vanhoef breaks Wi-Fi security yet again, with a new frame aggregation attack that affects all Wi-Fi encryption standards since 1997 and up to today.

  • Episode 16: Contact Discovery in Mobile Messengers!

    May 24th, 2021  |  46 mins 44 secs
    secure messaging

    Do we really need to rely on sharing every phone number on our phone in order for mobile messengers to be usable? What are the privacy risks, and do better cryptographic alternatives exist for managing that data? Joining us are researchers looking exactly into this problem, who will tell us more about their interesting results.

  • Episode 15: Bringing Secure Multiparty Computation to the Real World!

    April 26th, 2021  |  46 mins 50 secs
    multi-party computation

    Nadim talks with Yehuda Lindell and Nigel Smart of Unbound Security about how multi-party computation can enter the real world, away from the blank slate of academia.

  • Episode 14: Schnorr, Factoring and Lattices!

    March 30th, 2021  |  46 mins 30 secs
    lattice cryptography, rsa

    Did Schnorr "destroy RSA" with his surprising ePrint submission? Lattice cryptography expert Léo Ducas joins Nadim from CWI, Amsterdam to discuss this topic and more on Cryptography FM.

  • Episode 13: Zero-Knowledge STARKs in the Real World!

    March 14th, 2021  |  47 mins
    zero-knowledge proofs

    Zero-Knowledge proofs have broadened the realm of use cases for applied cryptography over the past decade, from privacy-enhanced cryptocurrencies to applications in voting, finance, protecting medical data and more. In 2018, Dr. Eli Ben-Sasson and his team introduced ZK-STARKs, a new zero-knowledge construction that functions without trusted setup, thereby broadening what zero-knowledge systems are capable of. We’ll talk about ZK-STARKs and more with Eli in this episode of Cryptography FM.