As part of our mission and programs, Aspiration focuses on supporting the advancement of software engineering practices that have the potential to provide positive impact in human rights security, privacy and technology contexts. Two domains of ongoing focus are Reproducible Builds and cryptography, which are both critical in broader chain of trust advancements which inform our ability to more confidently rely on the digital tools we use in our collective efforts.
Recent years have seen major advances in the application of formal methods and other high assurance verification techniques to software. At the same time, there’s been a rapid increase in the use of cryptography to protect civil society and critical information systems.
Since 2016, we have proudly co-organized the HACS Workshop in locations around the globe.
The importance and complexity of cryptographic software makes it an ideal application for formal and high-assurance verification. The Workshop on High Assurance Crypto Software (HACS) was launched in 2016 by Gilles Barthe, Ben Laurie, and Trevor Perrin to drive this convergence forward.
HACS 2024 took place in Toronto, and brought together the world’s best cryptographic developers, from both open source and industry, with top practitioners and innovators in formal verification and high assurance methodologies. The goal is to foster collaborations towards making cryptographic software flawless.
Banner image based on a photo by Sven Graeme (modified) (CC BY-SA 2.0)