https://miscreants.github.io/blog.trailofbits.com/authors/opal-wright/Recent content in Opal Wright on The Trail of Bits BlogHugoen-usWed, 21 Aug 2024 09:00:51 -0400https://miscreants.github.io/blog.trailofbits.com/2024/08/21/yolo-is-not-a-valid-hash-construction/Wed, 21 Aug 2024 09:00:51 -0400https://miscreants.github.io/blog.trailofbits.com/2024/08/21/yolo-is-not-a-valid-hash-construction/Among the cryptographic missteps we see at Trail of Bits, “let’s build our own tool out of a hash function” is one of the most common. Clients have a problem along the lines of “we need to hash a bunch of different values together” or “we need a MAC” or “we need […]https://miscreants.github.io/blog.trailofbits.com/2024/07/01/quantum-is-unimportant-to-post-quantum/Mon, 01 Jul 2024 09:00:01 -0400https://miscreants.github.io/blog.trailofbits.com/2024/07/01/quantum-is-unimportant-to-post-quantum/You might be hearing a lot about post-quantum (PQ) cryptography lately, and it’s easy to wonder why it’s such a big deal when nobody has actually seen a quantum computer. But even if a quantum computer is never built, new PQ standards are safer, more resilient, and more flexible than their classical […]https://miscreants.github.io/blog.trailofbits.com/2024/06/24/disarming-fiat-shamir-footguns/Mon, 24 Jun 2024 09:00:38 -0400https://miscreants.github.io/blog.trailofbits.com/2024/06/24/disarming-fiat-shamir-footguns/The Fiat-Shamir transform is an important building block in zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) and multi-party computation (MPC). It allows zero-knowledge proofs based on interactive protocols to be made non-interactive. Essentially, it turns conversations into documents. This ability is at the core of powerful technologies like SNARKs and STARKs. Useful stuff! But the Fiat-Shamir […]https://miscreants.github.io/blog.trailofbits.com/2022/11/29/specialized-zero-knowledge-proof-failures/Tue, 29 Nov 2022 07:30:56 -0500https://miscreants.github.io/blog.trailofbits.com/2022/11/29/specialized-zero-knowledge-proof-failures/Zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs are useful cryptographic tools that have seen an explosion of interest in recent years, largely due to their applications to cryptocurrency. The fundamental idea of a ZK proof is that a person with a secret piece of information (a cryptographic key, for instance) can prove something about the secret […]