Nick Sullivan
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Nick Sullivan
@nicksullivan.org
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Asymmetries in action
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The SplinterCon conference about the splintering Internet is coming up in Paris early December and has opened its call for presentations. It’s a great venue for early ideas in security, networking, and cryptography. Deadline: Oct 31, 2025. Apply here: splintercon.net/paris-partic...
Paris - participate - SplinterCon
December 8-10, 2025 For guests Everyone interested in attending SplinterCon Paris as a guest should apply through the form below. Due to limited capacity and ambition to keep the meeting…
splintercon.net
Honored to be nominated for the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) for 2026–27. The IAB sets the Internet’s long-term technical direction and oversees the RFC Series and the IETF/IRTF. Feedback to the nominating committee is welcome: datatracker.ietf.org/nomcom/2025/..., I'd appreciate it!
datatracker.ietf.org
At IETF124, the CFRG (where I co-chair) is testing a new session format: the first slot for new work and informational presentations, the second for consensus and advancing drafts. MLS (secure messaging) is also finalizing its extensions framework.
Full Agenda: datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/124/...
IETF 124 Meeting Agenda
datatracker.ietf.org
We are hosting a side meeting for the ARMOR mailing list on Nov 3 at 19:00 EST (Duluth Room). We’ll be discussing how to make network protocols resilient in adversarial environments. Remote attendance welcome via WebEx: trello.com/c/8hhaa23A
Trello
Organize anything, together. Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, know what's being worked on, who's working on what, and where something is in a pro...
trello.com
Here are seven things I’m looking forward to in the next month.

Tomorrow, I’ll be guest lecturing with Kyle Hogan at NYU for Sunoo Park’s class on public interest tech. The theme: bikeshedding and how to get things done in internet standards.
Unsustainable tactic.
Suit up with ARMOR and help protect the Internet’s founding promise.

Join ARMOR: mailman3.irtf.org/mailman3/lis...

Public Archive: mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/...
mailman3.irtf.org
The Internet was built to be open and neutral. ARMOR is about protecting that founding promise by strengthening secure, end-to-end connectivity against today’s adversarial network environment.
For years, the protocols that connect us online have inadvertently exposed user metadata. Network intermediaries exploit this to throttle, block, manipulate, and disrupt end-to-end communication.
That is why I helped launch ARMOR (Adaptive Resilience & Measurement for Operational Robustness), an open IRTF mailing list for academics, engineers, and rights advocates to collaborate on keeping end-to-end connectivity resilient.
Global network interference and traffic disruption are on the rise. In 2024, governments in 41 countries blocked websites and in 25 countries entire social platforms were restricted (freedomhouse.org/report/freed...).
The Struggle for Trust Online
Around the world, voters have been forced to make major decisions about their future while navigating a censored, distorted, and unreliable information space.
freedomhouse.org
What sort of organization? 501c3?
Reposted by Nick Sullivan
Continuing our look at the Enigma track talks is "Fighting Fire with Venom: Adversarial Defense Against Unauthorized Web Crawling," presented by independent technologist Nick Sullivan. 1/3
Tomorrow on USENIX Security’s Enigma track, I’ll unveil Venom, a new framework to sting back at rogue AI web crawlers with some adversarial mischief. If you’re around Seattle, come say hi or ping me!

www.usenix.org/conference/u...
Fighting Fire with Venom: Adversarial Defense Against Unauthorized Web Crawling | USENIX
www.usenix.org
Reposted by Nick Sullivan
The Call for Contributed Talks is now open for RWC 2026! And the deadline for submissions is now Oct. 10, 2025.
rwc.iacr.org/2026/contrib...
RWC 2026 call for papers
Real World Crypto Symposium
rwc.iacr.org
Fascinating House Judiciary hearing going on live right now: Influence on Americans' Data Through the CLOUD Act. Big focus on the UK and Apple's E2E backup system. www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJgw...
www.youtube.com
I’m going to hold off on using the term artificial intelligence to describe this current generation of products and just call them what they are: language models. Until they gain mathematical and symbolic reasoning skills, the term “intelligence” is a stretch.
Germ is launching support for open-source AT Protocol and the Bluesky platform in their Germ messenger. Everything I want in a messaging app: strong encryption, clean UX, and trust & safety tied to social identity. A big move for private messaging and I can't be prouder to be an advisor.
Yes, you read that right. Germ DM is integrating with #ATProto, bringing you best-in-class E2EE DMs with your Bluesky handle.

Be first to try it in beta, coming sooner than you think.

germnetwork.com/beta-waitlist
Germ-ATProto Beta Waitlist — Germ Network
germnetwork.com