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EFI Pairs Without One-Way Puzzles: Oracle Separations from Communication Complexity
Theorists build a classical oracle where one-way puzzles fail yet EFI pairs survive, separating two candidate minimal assumptions of quantum cryptography.
The paper constructs a single classical oracle relative to which one-way puzzles do not exist, even with an unbounded verifier, while an EFI pair survives every classical-query distinguisher holding advice, making one superposition query at the end. Security is proven by reducing adversary knowledge to communication complexity for Vector-in-Subspace, with the superposition query bounded using random matrix theory. Relative to the oracle, quantum polynomial time offers no advantage on tasks with classical inputs and outputs and there is no proof of quantumness, separating the leading minimal assumptions of quantum cryptography.
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An AI CAPTCHA solver talked itself out of the right answer
Bern researchers solved rotation CAPTCHAs in 0.006 seconds with classical computer vision, while Gemini 3.1 Pro needed 67 seconds and overruled correct tool answers.
Researchers at Bern University of Applied Sciences built a script using 1970s circle-detection math and signal matching that solved rotation CAPTCHAs in 0.006 seconds, scoring 10/10 on real-world puzzles. Frontier models fared poorly: Gemini 3.1 Pro scored 7/10 taking 67 seconds, while GPT-4o and Grok scored 1/10. When given the script's correct answer as a tool, Gemini overruled it and lost a fifth of its score; models could verbally describe targets, such as identifying a cyan ring, but could not produce accurate click coordinates. The paper also notes these no-JavaScript CAPTCHAs reduce tracking, leaving only shape-matching tasks classical vision solves easily.
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AI models flub these intelligence tests. Can you fare any better?
MIT Technology Review examines puzzle and game benchmarks where current AI models still underperform, probing the limits of machine intelligence tests.
MIT Technology Review explores puzzles and games as benchmarks for gauging AI progress, tracing the practice back to the origins of machine learning in a 1959 article by IBM's Arthur Samuel. The piece highlights intelligence-style tests that today's models still fail and questions what those results reveal about model capabilities. It situates gaming benchmarks within the broader debate over measuring machine intelligence.
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How much of F-Droid is LLM generated?
A FOSS maintainer manually graded 102 F-Droid apps from the September 12, 2026 update batch, finding many show signs of LLM-generated code.
A student and FOSS app maintainer reviewed 102 apps pushed to F-Droid on September 12, 2026, assigning each a three-tier rating for likelihood of LLM-authored code (mostly AI >50%, hard to say/mostly human, no signs of AI). The heuristic relies on commit aesthetics, README and branding style, and the presence of agentic infrastructure like Claude Code or Codex, which automatically places an app in the 'mostly AI' tier. Example ratings include Amber (Nostr event signer) as mostly AI, and Aria for Misskey as showing no AI signs. The author stresses reliable detection of LLM-generated code from text alone is impossible, so ratings are approximate.
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Introducing Unit 42’s Attribution Framework
Unit 42 releases its Attribution Framework, a systematic method using Diamond Model and Admiralty scores to attribute activity clusters to named threat actors.
Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 introduced a structured framework for threat actor attribution built on the Diamond Model of Intrusion Analysis and Admiralty reliability/credibility scoring. The framework tracks activity at three levels: activity clusters (named CL-STA, CL-CRI, CL-UNK, or CL-MIX), temporary threat groups, and named threat actors using the constellation naming schema. Analysts score evidence across TTPs, tooling, malware code, OPSEC, infrastructure, timelines, and victimology to decide when to merge or elevate clusters, avoiding premature group naming.
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Claude Fable 5.1 Solves the Cyphral Distich, a 370-year-old cipher
Claude Fable 5.1 solved Sir Thomas Urquhart's 370-year-old Cyphral Distich cipher, recovering a hidden royalist prayer for Charles II.
Vals AI reports that Claude Fable 5.1 solved the Cyphral Distich, a 64-number cryptogram from Sir Thomas Urquhart's Logopandecteision unsolved since 1653, in 44 minutes using 176k tokens with no human hints. The key insight was that the cipher's key was the book itself: each number indexes a word in the corresponding Proquiritation, taking the first letter, yielding 'O GOD UPHOLD KING CHARLS THE SECOND AND MAKE HIM THE SUPREME RULER OF THIS LAND'. The model also deciphered the larger Cyphral Octastich (285 numbers) from The Jewel (1652) using page-based word indexing, recovering all but nine letters of a royalist prayer. The puzzle had been listed among Klaus Schmeh's Top 50 unsolved encrypted messages.
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