nora
@nora.bsky.social
Engineer and Applied Cryptographer working in the ASML at Harvard’s BKC.
Led cryptography R&D at Juicebox and privacy projects at Signal.
Passionate about fostering inclusive communities, mentoring women in tech, and building third spaces for creatives.
Led cryptography R&D at Juicebox and privacy projects at Signal.
Passionate about fostering inclusive communities, mentoring women in tech, and building third spaces for creatives.
I hope you’re preserving scraps of wallpaper for a gallery wall some day when this is all finished!
June 24, 2025 at 12:11 PM
I hope you’re preserving scraps of wallpaper for a gallery wall some day when this is all finished!
We cannot let the AI take our em dashes away! I also use them all the time—so frustrating how it has become such an indicator of ChatGPT!
June 23, 2025 at 2:41 AM
We cannot let the AI take our em dashes away! I also use them all the time—so frustrating how it has become such an indicator of ChatGPT!
Ah, to be clear the virtual HSM here is a juicebox implemented version just for testing the code without costly hardware. It doesn’t even attempt any protections. Which one are you talking about?
June 6, 2025 at 11:26 PM
Ah, to be clear the virtual HSM here is a juicebox implemented version just for testing the code without costly hardware. It doesn’t even attempt any protections. Which one are you talking about?
Belatedly! That could indicate either an HSM or a virtual HSM (meant for testing, not secure). The /livez endpoint suggests they're using the code as-is from main. Request timing makes me suspect a virtual HSM, but it's not definitive.
June 6, 2025 at 10:55 PM
Belatedly! That could indicate either an HSM or a virtual HSM (meant for testing, not secure). The /livez endpoint suggests they're using the code as-is from main. Request timing makes me suspect a virtual HSM, but it's not definitive.
It's totally possible! If you find something concrete, definitely let me know. NCC audited the design and code and there were a number of other folks who reviewed, but mistakes happen and this is the first time its being used in production at this kind of scale.
June 6, 2025 at 8:14 PM
It's totally possible! If you find something concrete, definitely let me know. NCC audited the design and code and there were a number of other folks who reviewed, but mistakes happen and this is the first time its being used in production at this kind of scale.
There's a few others out there using it, but with similar misunderstandings. In hindsight, it's probably not well engineered for most developers to not shoot themselves in the foot. But I'd love to see it used well! It's much more efficient than similar things, like WhatsApps HSM setup
June 6, 2025 at 8:11 PM
There's a few others out there using it, but with similar misunderstandings. In hindsight, it's probably not well engineered for most developers to not shoot themselves in the foot. But I'd love to see it used well! It's much more efficient than similar things, like WhatsApps HSM setup
Signal ended up doing their own thing, relying heavily on confidential compute (AWS nitro and the like) which I think is less ideal, but to some degree follows the same premise. www.usenix.org/conference/o...
Secret Key Recovery in a Global-Scale End-to-End Encryption System | USENIXusenix_logo_notag_white
www.usenix.org
June 6, 2025 at 8:08 PM
Signal ended up doing their own thing, relying heavily on confidential compute (AWS nitro and the like) which I think is less ideal, but to some degree follows the same premise. www.usenix.org/conference/o...
The hope was to carry on the work we did at Signal on Secure Value Recovery, but diversify away from SGX/a singular hardware failure point.
Technology Preview for secure value recovery
At Signal, we want to make privacy simple. From the beginning, we’ve designed Signal so that your information is in your hands rather than ours. Technologies like Signal Protocol secure your messages ...
signal.org
June 6, 2025 at 8:07 PM
The hope was to carry on the work we did at Signal on Secure Value Recovery, but diversify away from SGX/a singular hardware failure point.
The organization doesn't exist anymore. We created the protocol, played with the idea of offering it as saas (we run HSMs for people), pitched around, and eventually scrapped it due to minimal interest. Open sourced and published stuff to the world, and mostly I thought that was that until now!
June 6, 2025 at 8:03 PM
The organization doesn't exist anymore. We created the protocol, played with the idea of offering it as saas (we run HSMs for people), pitched around, and eventually scrapped it due to minimal interest. Open sourced and published stuff to the world, and mostly I thought that was that until now!
Yes, I know about that theoretical ceremony :) I linked that pdf above, but noone who worked on Juicebox (and developed that ceremony) worked with Twitter to do this, and given they haven't published the results of a ceremony I must assume one never happened (despite it being our intended design)
June 6, 2025 at 7:55 PM
Yes, I know about that theoretical ceremony :) I linked that pdf above, but noone who worked on Juicebox (and developed that ceremony) worked with Twitter to do this, and given they haven't published the results of a ceremony I must assume one never happened (despite it being our intended design)
And I have good reason to suspect those realms using noise are at _best_ are HSMs that haven't gone through a signing ceremony, but much more likely virtualized HSMs
June 6, 2025 at 7:53 PM
And I have good reason to suspect those realms using noise are at _best_ are HSMs that haven't gone through a signing ceremony, but much more likely virtualized HSMs