SOME OF THE RESEARCH

Uniform Avoidance Coupling of Simple Random Walks - is it possible to check if you can program two tokens to walk on a graph s that they never collide BUT if you only see one it looks like a simple random walk? For some graphs we can, and I found an algorithm to test whether you have one of these graphs. In polynomial time!

Combinatorics and k-anonymity A theoretical reason k-anonimity is a good way to construct anonymity sets - rather than just what we know how to do in practice.

The Total Acquisition Number of Random Geometric Graphs (with Mitsche, Prałat)

Symmetric Disclosure: a Fresh Look at k-Anonymity FOCI'14, with presentation video. Social networks are very sparse, so k-anonymity gives very little cover traffic for communications unless we group users in rather large sets. This is an often ignored problem. I propose a way to use the sparsity and use this property to our advantage.

Counting Restricted Dyck Paths Through Random Walks - a cute, new probabilistic way to arrive at a well known formula with Chebyshev Polynomials.

Common adversaries form alliances: modelling complex networks via anti-transitivity (with Bonato, Pohkrel, Prałat), I'm listing it to say that I'm aware that this paper is wrong. The "result" is an artifact of the arbirary way the network is modelled, and vacuous. I have *feelings* about the way papers like this get accepted for publication easier than many more valuable ones.

TEACHING MATERIALS

Discrete Mathematics for Engineers 2017, Toronto Metropolitan (formerly Ryerson) University: propositional logic, predicate logic, set theory, induction, recursion, divisibility, congruences, RSA, RSA - proofs, graph theory I, II, III. Each of these is a 3h lecture. 3h math lectures are a terrible idea, don't try it. Here are the remaining materials, including worksheets for each class.

Probability 2014, Dartmouth College: this is by far the course I am most proud of. here is a backup of the lecture notes.

First steps in Java (with A. Olchowik and B. Owczarek): I, II, III and IV.









An introductory security and privacy video tutorial, with Paweł Ngei (in Polish) for a large pro-choice and feminist mutual aid movement: VIDEO LINK

(Dobra, zostawię to mimo że to był 2016 i kilka rzeczy jest nieaktualnych, więcej jest nadal przydatnych. Poza tym wzrusz, to jeszcze były czasy zanim ludzie się totalnie poddali jeśli chodzi o autonomię w sieci.)

PROJECTS

Katzenpost is an anonymity system designed to protect from realistic, powerful adversaries, built by some of the most hardcore privacy engineers out there. I am proud to be part of it.

Here's a session we gave at the last Chaos Communication Congress - "Adventures in the design of Anonymity Systems"


There are other ideas I've been pursuing in the meantime, most notably multiple educational games. They're not quite ready to be talked about though. I also encourage you to talk to Brett about open source hearing aids he's been developing.

There is also IMPAKT, an app framework for grassroots movements I was working on a few years ago. I hope to actually get back to that some day. The code for IMPAKT is backed up here (front) and here (back)

EDUCATION

PhD in Mathematics, Dartmouth College (2016).
Supervisor: Prof. Peter Winkler
PhD thesis: Applications of Matching Theory in Avoidance Coupling and Anonymity Systems

London School of Economics
(MSc in Applicable Mathematics, 2011, with distinction)
University of Cambridge
(Part III / Master of Advanced Studies in Mathematics, 2009)
King's College London
(BSci in Mathematics, 2008, first class honours)



WHY I QUIT ACADEMIA

I left academia after my first postdoctoral fellowship. The reasons are largely the same as they are for most would-be professors in my generation: it just wasn't worth the struggle. But like most, I found that it is easier to make an impact and work on solving the problems that matter once I quit. It's the hacker world that taught me intellectual courage, not academia. The most liberating thing I ever learned was to not wait for permission or validation to work on solving a problem. Especially when it comes to the big problems. It's hackers, not academics, who shoot for the sky.

POLITICS

I feel called to empower the public to resist surveillance. While the violent conflicts, the corrupt economic system and climate catastrophe may be more direct problems, surveillance and every day control is an obstacle to us finding solutions. It is having profound effects on our social structure and solidifying destructive power systems worldwide. "If information is power, then privacy is freedom."

And as a mathematician, this is where I feel most empowered to effect change. In the past I have used my skills to aid freedom-minded projects, and provided computer and operational security assistance to progressive organizations and NGOs. I've also been involved with the American Civil Liberties Union, Bernie2016 campaign, the Stop C-51 iniatitive in Canada, and somewhat extensively with the Polish progressive movement Razem, as well as various mutual aid, open education and autonomous organizations.

But I never lost hope that since the world is shaped by what's digital, we can shape it in turn by building our technology better. That the right kind of math can really go a long way. Most recently this hope is expressed through The Katzenpost Project.

FAMILY

There's a short blurb below, but I made a more thorough page about my family's academic legacy, because I'm... coping with insecurities, I guess?

There is plenty on the web on Leopold Infeld's legacy as scientist, educator and peace activist. My Grandfather and Einstein, originally published on now-gone Fiat Physica may serve as a personal retrospective. Also, here is the full text of The Evolution of Physics by A. Einstein and L. Infeld, as well as the text of the Russel-Einstein Manifesto, which remains relevant today.

Some day I hope to upload scans of my grandfather Leopold's correspondence with Einstein, but there's a lot of it. In the meantime, here is a bit of history in the letters from Frederic Joliot-Curie, Bertrand Russel and Henry Kissinger. It felt so good to find out that he publicly disagreed with Kissinger even before that mofo bombed tf out of Asia. Proud of you, Grandpa.

My other grandfather is the Polish writer Józef Hen.

My grandmother Helen Schlauch (later Infeld) recieved a PhD in Mathematics at Cornell at a time when few women pursued mathematics and her sister Margaret Schlauch was a linguist of note specializing in Norse and English literature.