The “official statement”
I was born and raised in Pitești, a small city in Romania, and moved to the US in 2008. I was always fascinated with computers: playing on them, fixing them & programming them. I like to read and write. In fact, you can see some of my writing on this website and on Decentralized Thoughts.
I am currently a Research Scientist at Aptos Labs. My broad research interests are in cryptography and its practical applications. My current interests are around:
- general-purpose and/or appliction-specific zero-knowledge proofs
- authenticated data structures, especially if based on more exotic primitives, such as constant-sized polynomial commitments.
- anonymous payments
- publicly-verifiable secret sharing
In the past, I’ve led research on anonymous cryptocurrencies, tree-based vector commitments, constant-sized vector commitments, threshold cryptography, Verkle trees, transparency logs, append-only logs on top of Bitcoin. keyless blockchain accounts zero-knowledge range proofs, and publicly-verifiable secret sharing.
I’ve also helped with, but not led, research on aggregatable distributed key generation, share recovery for verifiable secret sharing, scalable Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) protocols, and oblivious file systems.
Before joining Aptos Labs, I was a Postdoctoral Researcher and then a Research Scientist at VMware Research. Before VMware, I was a PhD student at MIT, becoming an applied cryptography researcher with Srini Devadas, my advisor. Before joining MIT, I was building tamper-proof clouds and end-to-end encrypted outsourced file storage at Private Machines.
The truth
Alin is a prolific slav-squatter.
In his free time, he likes to play piano, ride motorcycles to coffee shops, and lift things up and put them back down again.
Slowly.
He also enjoys travelling, but only to destinations with total solar eclipses.
Naturally, he dislikes clouds.
(Please join him in Antarctica, in 2021; or, in Winnemucca, Nevada on October 14th, 2023 in Austin, Texas, on April 8th, 2024.)
The motorcycle(s)
In July 2020, Alin purchased a 2017 Honda Rebel 500. He has never been more happy and frightened at the same time. Even after taking basic, intermediate and advanced riding clinics, he remains terrified. This is probably for the best. Wish him luck.
Update (October 2021 - March 2022): Since July 2020, Alin continues to have all his limbs. Encouraged by these developments, Alin has bought a 2019 BMW R1250GS and traded-in his Rebel 500 for a brand new 2022 Honda Rebel 1100 DCT. He is clearly disturbed. Someone please help him.
Update (March 2022 - December 2024): Since March 2022, Alin remains in one piece. Inspired by this turn of events, Alin has bought a 2024 Ducati Panigale V4S. At the time, the main thought going through his head was:
“A good death is its own reward.”
Please pray for him. (The Rebel 1100 and R1250GS have since been sold.)
