Research Profile
About Me
I received my B.Sc. degree in Information Security from University of Science and Technology of China (2018-2022). I then joined University of Chinese Academy of Sciences as a Ph.D. student in Cybersecurity under the supervision of Xiaorui Gong.
My doctoral research primarily focuses on the Generalized Birthday Problem and Wagner’s algorithm. More broadly, I maintain strong research interests in post-quantum cryptography (especially code-based), zero-knowledge proofs, and blockchain security.
In parallel, I was also a core crypto-member of NeSE CTF team from 2022 to 2026. However, following the rapid advancement of large language models, I have largely stepped away from CTF competitions since 2026, as I believe modern LLMs have fundamentally undermined the design space of many CTF challenges, particularly in the cryptography category.
Focus Areas
Research Interests
Applied Cryptography
Cryptanalysis of real-world protocols and cryptographic schemes, with a focus on post-quantum candidates, zk-SNARKs and blockchain applications.
AI for Cryptography/Security
Automatic vulnerability discovery, especially for cryptographic protocols and implementations. Vibe research in the realms of cryptography and security.
Selected Work
Publications
The 46th International Cryptology ConferenceTo appear
On the Regularity of the Generalized Birthday Problem
TL;DR: We study structural regularity in the Generalized Birthday Problem and its impact on practical schemes including incremental hashing and Equihash. The main contribution of this work is the complexity analysis of regular and non-regular GBP, with important implications for the $k$-$\textsf{XOR}$ and $k$-$\textsf{SUM}$ problems.
IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems, 2026(2)
Memory Optimizations of Wagner’s Algorithm with Applications to Equihash
TL;DR: We propose a new list-item-reduction framework that reduces the memory complexity of Wagner’s algorithm from $2nN$ to $nN$ bits, thereby weakening the ASIC resistance of Equihash. This optimization has important implications for the efficient implementation of Wagner-style algorithms.
Selected Awards
Capture The Flag (CTF)
NeSE’s crypto team: tl2cents(me), deebato, and Threonine.
Team: Lili Tang, Chenyu Li, and Hao Jiang
First independent team from mainland China to qualify for DEFCON Finals.