iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I'd like to remind IACR members to sign up for discuss.iacr.org so they can participate in the discussion about how to adapt the society to the new world of publishing and conferences. If you don't have an account you can visit iacr.org/discuss/

iacr.org

accounts on discuss.iacr.org

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

the first portable computers were called "luggables". That term now seems appropriate for the largest phones.

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Reposted by @mccurley.bsky.social

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 09/09/2026

Not to brag, but our product has been foldable since 1828.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

There is a bit of codependence in the AI community. Claude-User runs on google cloud. 🧐

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

After a few decades of working in computer science, now that I am retired for a while I've started dabbling again in analytic number theory. This is an interesting time to dive back into mathematics research because LLMs are having a HUGE effect on how we do research.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

No AI was used in the production of this post. It is a completely authentic piece of shit.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Over the years I have come to the conclusion that ORCID doesn't really solve any problem that we have other than to occasionally distinguish authors who have very similar names. The current wave to require ORCID authentication feels like flailing in the wind.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

a 6am meeting on Monday. this retirement thing may need renewal...

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I decided to skip all future updates to Android because of the lockdown by Google. the only Google app I still use is maps but maybe I'll just give up on the Google version of Android.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

It's coming up on tarantula mating season in San Jose. That's really a thing.

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Reposted by @mccurley.bsky.social

Danny Fearns @dannyfearns.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Good morning Bluesky ☀️ This is one of the last coal powered sheep. The vast majority of UK sheep are now all electric ⚡️

Sheep grazing in fields, the one in the foreground with white smoke apparently coming out of its bottom

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

I somehow enjoy the fact that nextdoor has misconfigured their DMARC setup.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Perfect examples of reviewer 2 behavior. cda.psych.uiuc.edu/writing_clas...

cda.psych.uiuc.edu

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

it's good to see the crypto conference remain weird.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

I don't understand the angst that some mathematicians are expressing about the impact of LLMs on mathematics. There are real advances being made, including the recent advance on the Riemann Hypothesis: www-cdn.anthropic.com/564f962e6064...

www-cdn.anthropic.com

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

True car fans will appreciate the sarcasm. Fuck car week. 24hoursoflemons.com/concours-d-l...

24hoursoflemons.com

Concours d'Lemons - 24 Hours of LEMONS

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Amusing tidbit about eprint.iacr.org: the query "guessing guessing" is leading a lot of people to eprint, probably because of eprint.iacr.org/2026/1377

eprint.iacr.org

Cryptology ePrint Archive

The Cryptology ePrint Archive provides rapid access to recent research in cryptology.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

first thing I do in the morning when I look at my phone is check the news for mention of a big beautiful funeral.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

I have managed to avoid ever flying through Dubai. I don't expect that to ever change.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

I've never been bowling. Hacker News reminded me of this.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

starting to get canteloupes in our garden

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

My license plate frame on one of my cars reads "I can't complain but sometimes I still do." My wife's says "We've been trying to reach you about your car's extended warranty."

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

People forget that album covers were works of art. So was the music.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

I've written several LaTeX packages in the past, and also published a couple on CTAN. I just started a new one completely in claude code. If it can understand LaTeX expansion then I figure it can understand anything.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

no you probably should not refer to this. orcid.org/0009-0006-64...

orcid.org

ORCID

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

The IACR board has put forward a proposal to revamp the publishing of the general conference proceedings for Eurocrypt, Crypto, and Asiacrypt. iacr.org/hybridpropos... I would encourage members to engage in discussion about this on iacr.org/discuss

iacr.org

Concrete Hybrid Journal Proposal

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

I have been using the paid version of claude for both code and mathematics research, and I'm very impressed by it. By contrast, I've been using the free version of Gemini and it continues to feed me nonsense maybe 1/4 of the time. I didn't have any expectation going into this.

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Reposted by @mccurley.bsky.social

John Timmer @jtimmer.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Just a reminder that there's only about a week left to leave comments on the OMB proposal that will cripple federally funded research. Here's my attempt to convince you that you should, along with info on how to do so effectively.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

@alaskaairlines.bsky.social has a completely useless website that is designed to make sure you cannot login. Luckily there are other airlines.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

I know this sounds ridiculous to my east coast friends, but I'm visiting friends near the Monterey Bay area today. I may need to take a jacket. ❄️

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Dear 185.177.72.49. Why the fuck have you sent 2940 HTTP requests to eprint.iacr.org in the last two hours, all returning a 404? I'll give you credit for sending 34 requests that result in a 200 return code, but your hit rate doesn't seem particularly high. Go curl in a corner.

eprint.iacr.org

Cryptology ePrint Archive

The Cryptology ePrint Archive provides rapid access to recent research in cryptology.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

a single IP address submitted over 20k searches to print.iacr.org yesterday. That's a WTF.

print.iacr.org

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

It has been an interesting experience to try and control crawling by AI companies the last few months. They are mostly well-behaved, but they seem to have recruited individual users to do their crawling for them. There are also a LOT of PhD students trying to find projects with public corpora.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

There is something quite weird about Facebook telling me to wish a happy birthday to a dead colleague.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

I have decided that Google #gemini is completely fucking useless for writing code. The amount of hallucination about code is a constant source of misdirection.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

I asked gemini to write a brief parody of the Citizens United decision by the US Supreme Court. It's not bad! sigcrap.org/2026/06/citi...

sigcrap.org

CITIZENS OBSOLETE v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION | SIGCRAP

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

I've been using claude and gemini pretty regularly these days. My impression about using claude for mathematics is that it spews a lot of nonsense, and has a strong tendency to want to confirm what the user said. I am used to having my collaborators object when I make a stupid suggestion.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

I've been trying claude code for writing code. I find that it's sometimes slower than what I do, and it creates a lot of errors along the way so it takes a lot of effort to fix things.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

I have an old guy collaborator who cannot fathom how to do LaTeX on his own machine. He has been mooching off the paid overleaf accounts of his coauthors. I could run my own VM for overleaf, but the code is so gigantic that it would cost as much as a paid overleaf account. I think I'll try prism

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

For some reason a bot keeps fetching eprint.iacr.org/2025/055.pdf with a bot every minute. That's all they fetch. 🧐 Perhaps they are intending to trade ethereum if this changes???

eprint.iacr.org

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

I created some fake email addresses that I placed on the web on the web back in the 90s. I'm always amused when I see a business send email to those honeypots. This week it was Amazon business. I guess they buy low-quality email lists to send spam to.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

what is the oldest piece of clothing you own and how long since you have worn it? I wore a shirt today that I think is 30 years old. 🙄

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

These tomato plants were planted on the same day. One seems to be doing better than the other.

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mccurley.bsky.social @mccurley.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

For the last few months I've worked on and off to improve a specific theorem in number theory based on some recent work by Maynard, Tao, and others. I started using claude to understand it, and got to a point where it wants money. This is a peculiar twist on how mathematics research is done.

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