A home for people who study Cryptography, Security & Quantum Computing.
The Open Centre for Cryptography & Secure Systems is a community and research space where researchers, engineers, students, and professionals learn cryptography together, discuss it in the open, and build real tools from what they learn.
Research
Working groups publish notes, cryptanalysis, and implementations in the open — reviewed by the community before they're called finished.
Explore ResearchLearn
Structured tracks, reading groups, and labs take you from modular arithmetic to protocol design, at whatever pace your background allows.
Explore LearningBuild
Members turn what they learn into libraries, audits, and CTF tooling — with mentorship from practitioners already working in the field.
Explore ProjectsCryptography learned in public, not in isolation.
Most cryptography is either locked behind paywalled courses or scattered across forum threads with no thread connecting them. We exist to be the connective tissue — a single, open place where the field is taught, debated, and applied.
Open by default
Every reading list, research note, and lab writeup is published under an open license. Nothing sits behind a login unless a member asked to keep their own work private.
Rigor over hype
We favor primary sources, working proofs, and reproducible code over slide decks. If a claim can't survive a review thread, it isn't ready to publish.
Who's inside the Centre
There's no single profile for a member just a shared habit of taking cryptography seriously.
Independent Researchers
Working through post-quantum proofs and cryptanalysis outside of any formal lab, and looking for peer review.
Protocol & Security Engineers
Building or auditing key-exchange and signing systems at work, and stress-testing designs here first.
Graduate & Undergraduate Students
Here for the reading group and Foundations track, often looking for a thesis-adjacent research community.
Working Security Professionals
Bring real-world breach patterns and production constraints into the applied cryptanalysis discussions.
Want to see who's actually posting? Join the community
Research Hub
Each area is led by a rotating set of members and meets on its own cadence. Notes and code from every group are public.
Post-Quantum Cryptography
Lattice- and code-based schemes, migration strategy, and implementation pitfalls as NIST standards move into production.
Zero-Knowledge Proofs
zk-SNARKs and zk-STARKs from first principles through to circuit design, with an eye on real-world proving costs.
Applied Cryptanalysis
Breaking things responsibly — side channels, weak randomness, and protocol-level attacks against deployed systems.
Protocol Engineering
Designing and formally verifying key-exchange and secure-messaging protocols, from whiteboard to specification.
Hardware Security
Secure enclaves, side-channel resistance, and the gap between a correct algorithm and a correct implementation.
Privacy Engineering
Differential privacy, private set intersection, and building systems that keep their promises under real adversaries.
Articles & white papers
Peer-reviewed within the community before publication. Every piece links to its source repository and discussion thread.
Migration Playbook: ML-KEM in Production TLS Stacks
A practical account of moving a live TLS terminator to a hybrid classical/post-quantum key exchange, including the failure modes nobody warns you about.
Protocol Engineering WG · 14 min readWhy Nonce Reuse Still Breaks ECDSA in 2026
A walk through the algebra of key recovery from two signatures sharing a nonce, and the deployment patterns that keep reintroducing the bug.
Applied Cryptanalysis WG · 9 min readProving Cost Benchmarks for Three zk-STARK Backends
Reproducible measurements of proving and verification time across circuit sizes, with the harness published alongside the results.
Zero-Knowledge WG · 21 min readA Gentle Path Into Lattice-Based Cryptography
The LWE problem explained from the geometry up, for readers who have linear algebra but no prior exposure to the field.
Post-Quantum WG · 12 min readNews & events
What the centre published, decided, or is hosting next.
Latest news
Upcoming events
Watch past talks & workshops
Every session we host is recorded and published to our YouTube channel — each one paired with a short written study guide covering the key ideas and any formulas discussed.
// Watch the talk, then work through the guide
Sessions coming soon
We are currently preparing our first batch of recorded sessions and study guides. Check back soon or subscribe to our channel to get notified.
Collaborators
Academic groups, open-source projects, and independent labs the Centre collaborates with on research and teaching. This list grows as new partnerships are formalised.
University Cryptography Lab
Joint reading sessions and shared access to early-stage post-quantum research.
Open Quantum Safe
Our Post-Quantum working group tests and reports against the liboqs library.
Independent Security Research Collective
Cross-posting of cryptanalysis write-ups and shared CTF challenge design.
Applied Security Practitioners Network
Mentors and guest reviewers for the Centre's protocol-audit mentorship track.
Placeholder entries — to be replaced with named collaborators once partnerships are formally agreed. Interested? Get in touch.
The centre runs on the people who show up to it.
Membership is free and open to anyone learning or working in cryptography — students, independent researchers, and professionals alike. Bring a question, a proof, or just curiosity.