For our 6.5610 (Applied Cryptography) final project, we present an backdoorable DRBG based on Dual EC DRBG that, unlike Dual EC DRBG, is a true DRBG under suitable assumptions. Our algorithm, which we call the Twisted Dual EC DRBG, involves iteratively multiplying points on an elliptic curve or its quadratic twist.

The introduction contains background on how the NSA and NIST initially worked to backdoor a DRBG; LOL.

For a resolution to one skirmish between the sexes, argues the writer who goes by the name Cartoons Hate Her, we should consider reaching back to the 1990s.

via: https://www.cartoonshateher.com/p/men-dont-like-bitches-but-they-do

Ever wonder what goes on behind the booth at a comic convention? How much work actually goes in to making sexy books? Look no further, because I’m giving you a peek behind the curtain on how selling sexy comics in person looks!

When “what CAN happen” is as important as “what SHOULD happen”

UNIX is a general-purpose, multi-user, interactive operating system for the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11/40 and 11/45 computers. It offers a number of features seldom found even in larger operating systems, including: (1) a hierarchical file system incorporating demountable volumes; (2) compatible file, device, and inter-process I/O; (3) the ability to initiate asynchronous processes; (4) system command language selectable on a per-user basis; and (5) over 100 subsystems including a dozen languages. This paper discusses the nature and implementation of the file system and of the user command interface.

This is such a beautiful piece of computer science exposition. Man, it’s no wonder everyone wanted to copy these two guys.

see: https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~brewer/cs262/unix.pdf see: https://mit.edu/6.1800/www/readings/02-unix.shtml

Demonstrating that you can filter data to smooth out the numbers, but whether it’s weather data, stock market information or Taylor Swift, the math is the same! David Domminney Fowler takes us through it.

see: https://soundspear.com/product/formula

As per usual, Avilo beautifully articulates an affirmative vision of leftism and dives deep into the history of contemporary American fascism. Du Bois, I will get to step back into the sun again.

In mathematics, especially in the fields of universal algebra and graph theory, a graph algebra is a way of giving a directed graph an algebraic structure. It was introduced by McNulty and Shallon, and has seen many uses in the field of universal algebra since then.

!!

Circles and hyperbolas are, in a sense, surprisingly similar shapes. In this video, we explore the mystery behind their strange connection and step into a world of “rotation” and “angle” with meanings quite different from the usual ones. The key to this story lies in hyperbolic functions, which share many properties with trigonometric functions.

This video was really helpful in understanding the hyperbolic functions! Was happy to see that a connection I saw to spacetime is actually an application of them.

On todays episode our hero attempts to explain the “puppy girl” while trying to sound sane. This subculture has become quite prominent in online trans feminine spaces, so she hopes to figure out why that is. Using an excellent paper published last year, anecdotal evidence, and the occasional first-hand account, she gets to the root of what it means to fully embrace becoming a puppy. Trans voices are needed more now than ever, and some of them just so happen to bark.

Drawing a one-to-one correspondence between media consumption and behavior is always dicey—and never more so than when a high percentage of the audience is consuming a very different text than the one that is there. And it’s important to take a step back and check for alternate interpretations of the media we’re criticizing. All too often, feminist critiques of heterosexual porn wind up saying more about our views of women and sex than they do about the porn itself.

In conclusion: porn research is very bad and we don’t know anything. So it goes.

via: https://thingofthings.substack.com/p/polysemy-and-porn

OR: why you should sell onions on the internet

Ben Sparks explores hidden depths of a seemingly simple game.

Tic-tac-toe on a magic square. Hella neat, and hammers home how important representation is in mathematics.

If you want to be dead, that’s your own business. But if you would like to continue to be alive, it’s a bad idea to set goals for yourself that boil down to “try to get as close as possible to being a corpse while continuing to respire and consume nutrients.”

Something I can hopefully internalize.

Not self-applicable, but definitely amusing.

If a straight woman has made a somewhat blatant indication of interest—she’s put her head on your shoulder, or given you her contact information, or asked you to a movie—you might freak the fuck out, because a woman being interested in you is an impossibility, a violation of the previous laws of social interaction and perhaps reality.

Also why universal healthcare matters. Gotta maintain all parts of a system!

via: https://mit.edu/6.1800/www/readings/01-wrong.shtml

A comic about two black kids sitting on a box and wondering what’s inside.

via: https://madwomb.com/tutorials/ComicsLiterature_MIT.html

see: https://madwomb.com/tutorials/comicsDesign/literature/RichiePope_ThatBoxWeSitOn.pdf

What do the female fantasies of bad boys, danger, violence, and taboo all have in common? Permission to be horny.