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Daniel Dia

@danieldia.bsky.social

26 followers 85 following 40 posts

دانيال i do math, cryptography, comms, systems programming, and formal methods. Rustacean 🦀 “Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.” — Antonio Gramsci

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Daniel Dia @danieldia.bsky.social · 23d

when I was younger I used to hate programming because I thought it was tedious and messy with no clear goal or purpose behind it.

when I discovered functional programming (Haskell, F*, etc.) and Rust, I started loving it again.

I quite literally owe everything to this (somewhat) obscure paradigm!

Daniel Dia @danieldia.bsky.social · 3h

Fair, but then also if you’re reporting on such matters, it would be kind of foolish not to know the basic vocabulary of the field. I wouldn’t be very positive about a mathematical article misdefining what a function is, for example

Daniel Dia @danieldia.bsky.social · 3h

It would be very cool to have a .meow domain name!

Daniel Dia @danieldia.bsky.social · 3h

Petition to send him a dictionary

Daniel Dia @danieldia.bsky.social · 4d

Dodo should be featured on the website!

Nadim Kobeissi @nadim.computer · 4d

Our applied cryptography class now has a mascot, Dodo, who attends every session. Here is Dodo next to the Phoenician alphabet, which he likes.

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Daniel Dia @danieldia.bsky.social · 6d

And this was for F*, which is supported best and is stable! Can’t imagine how horrendous it is with ProVerif or Lean4.

As I am working through the source code anyway, I am documenting the library as I go. This way I’ll eliminate the headache for generations to come…

Daniel Dia @danieldia.bsky.social · 6d

No documentation whatsoever, no tutorials (or if there are any, they are barren or straight up empty), absolutely nothing on the hax Zulip chat, all in all it has been a battle against the source code that cost me my sanity.

Daniel Dia @danieldia.bsky.social · 6d

I am currently working on a project involving formally verifying Rust code for correctness and some other funny properties.

for that I have decided to use the “hax” tool which allows you to verify Rust code in F*, which sounds amazing, right?

It does, but working with it has been absolute headache

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Daniel Dia @danieldia.bsky.social · 9d

Some “unusual” languages of various kinds you can look into: Prolog, Moo, Tamarin, HolyC (of course), FRACTRAN, Malbolge, binary lambda calculus, Shakespeare, etc.

Daniel Dia @danieldia.bsky.social · 9d

brilliant analysis of Silksong’s themes

youtu.be/TbMvtgt5L2c?...

Silksong's Lore is a Capitalist Nightmare

YouTube video by Storm King

youtu.be

Daniel Dia @danieldia.bsky.social · 10d

Haskell for the win

Haskell programming language @haskell.org · 10d

🥸👍

Gee Sawra @geesawra.industries · 11d

if your functional programming language of choice doesn't shitpost on main it's not worthy of your time

Daniel Dia @danieldia.bsky.social · 10d

I fully understand that this is logistically much more difficult to pull off in a course, but the current state of things is so bad that code from such students is unmaintainable, unreliable and frankly unreliable.

It runs on pure and concentrated thoughts and prayers.

Daniel Dia @danieldia.bsky.social · 10d

only much later does one realize how unrealistic and frankly ridiculous some of these things are.

I feel like it is as, if not even more, important to teach them not how to write *any* code but how to write *good* code.

it is not sufficient for something to be correct or even optimal.

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Daniel Dia @danieldia.bsky.social · 10d

the way modern universities teach programming, especially C/C++ or Java (with OOP) is criminal.

it is such an absolutely lame and tasteless approach, feeding them absolute garbage disguised as an introduction to programming and/or data structures & algorithms.

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Daniel Dia @danieldia.bsky.social · 10d

“For those who come after.”
— Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Daniel Dia @danieldia.bsky.social · 12d

Hmm, yes, I see! Thank you for your answer

Daniel Dia @danieldia.bsky.social · 12d

I get that we should always be cautious, but Signal’s code is open source. What backdoors are even possible, let alone visible?

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Reposted by Daniel Dia

Nadim Kobeissi @nadim.computer · 12d

I made a Discord for my applied cryptography course and a sentence describing Grigori Perelman as the "OG tsundere" appeared within the first ten minutes

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Daniel Dia @danieldia.bsky.social · 12d

Use the bottom entrance, instead of going through the metal stairs, go behind the building where there is an open door. The external ones are closed 90% of the time, this one is open 24/7. You can use the elevator or the stairs to access the floor of your choosing.

Daniel Dia @danieldia.bsky.social · 12d

Consider FS1 (building next to the generators after Oxy). Basically always empty, no classes, AC, electricity, etc.

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Daniel Dia @danieldia.bsky.social · 14d

after a lot of fighting with the UEFI and some very weird firmware issues, I am proud to announce that I permanently deleted Windows and installed Fedora on KDE Plasma!!!!

could not be happier right now

now both of my PCs (desktop and laptop) are running Fedora on KDE woohoo!

Reposted by Daniel Dia

ePrint Updates @eprint.ing.bot · 15d

On the Credibility of Deniable Communication in Court (Jacob Leiken, Sunoo Park) ia.cr/2025/1949

Abstract. Over time, cryptographically deniable systems have come to be associated in computer-science literature with the idea of “denying” evidence in court — specifically, with the ability to convincingly forge evidence in courtroom scenarios, and relatedly, an inability to authenticate evidence in such contexts. Indeed, in some cryptographic models, the ability to falsify mathematically implies the inability to authenticate. Evidentiary processes in courts, however, have been developed over centuries to account for the reality that evidence has always been forgeable, and relies on factors outside of cryptographic models to seek the truth “as well as possible” while acknowledging that all evidence is imperfect. We argue that deniability does not and need not change this paradigm.

Our analysis highlights a gap between technical deniability notions and their application to the real world. There will essentially always be factors outside a cryptographic model that influence perceptions of a message’s authenticity, in realistic situations. We propose the broader concept of credibility to capture these factors. The credibility of a system is determined by (1) a threshold of quality that a forgery must pass to be “believable” as an original communication, which varies based on sociotechnical context and threat model, (2) the ease of creating a forgery that passes this threshold, which is also context- and threat-model-dependent, and (3) default system retention policy and retention settings. All three aspects are important for designing secure communication systems for real-world threat models, and some aspects of (2) and (3) may be incorporated directly into technical system design. We hope that our model of credibility will facilitate system design and deployment that addresses threats that are not and cannot be captured by purely technical definitions and existing cryptographic models, and support more nuanced discourse on the strengths and limitations of cryptographic guarantees within specific legal and sociotechnical contexts.

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Reposted by Daniel Dia

Nadim Kobeissi @nadim.computer · 14d

I would sincerely appreciate it it if the EXTREMELY LOUD ARMED ISRAELI DRONE HOVERING RIGHT ABOVE CENTRAL BEIRUT AND AUB FOR THE PAST FOUR HOURS could kindly let me prepare for my cryptography class in peace

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Daniel Dia @danieldia.bsky.social · 17d

sick burn

Reposted by Daniel Dia

Signal @signal.org · Oct 2

In 2023, Signal was the first mainstream messenger to enable post-quantum cryptography. We’re still ahead of the (elliptical) curve, implementing a new hybrid PQ ratchet ensuring Forward Secrecy & Post-Compromise Security even in a post-quantum world. signal.org/blog/spqr/

Signal Protocol and Post-Quantum Ratchets

We are excited to announce a significant advancement in the security of the Signal Protocol: the introduction of the Sparse Post Quantum Ratchet (SPQR). This new ratchet enhances the Signal Protocol’s...

signal.org

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Daniel Dia @danieldia.bsky.social · 19d

FINALLY!
Congrats Zed 🎉
Well done

Zed @zed.dev · 19d

It's finally here. Zed is available on Windows.

Built from scratch, and rendering at 1 million pixels/millisecond.

Download it today 👇