Boston Computation Club


The Boston Computation Club is a small seminar group focused on mathematical computer science, and computational mathematics. Its name is plagiarized from the London Computation Club. Boston Computation Club meetings occur roughly every other week, on weekends, around 5pm EDT (modulo speaker availability). The usual format is a 20m presentation followed by 40m of discussion. Presenters can assume the audience is mathematically savvy, but cannot assume any definitions are known to begin with. The Club has no strict leadership but is gently guided by Max von Hippel, Jacob Denbeaux, & friends.
To join the Slack & attend future talks, or if you would like to give a talk, email maxvh [ dot ] m [ at ] hey [ dot ] com. You can find us on YouTube, Anchor, and Substack.

Next Meeting: November 16, 2024 at 5PM EST

When Static Analysis Meets Large Language Models, Chengpeng Wang

Prior Meetings

10/05/24: Abuse-Resistant Location Tracking: Balancing Privacy and Safety in the Offline Finding Ecosystem, Harry Eldridge [VIDEO]
09/28/24: Hacking an LLM Using the Z3 Theorem Prover, Ian Bicking [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
09/07/24: Shaken, not Stirred -- Automated Discovery of Subtle Attacks on Protocols using Mix-Nets, Dhekra Mahmoud [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
08/24/24: An Introduction to Lurk, Matej Panciak [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
08/17/24: Efficient Synthesis of Symbolic Distributed Protocols by Sketching, Derek Egolf [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
08/10/24: Radically Better Academic Search With Undermind, Joshua Ramette [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
07/27/24: Pragmatic Program Synthesis, Evan Pu [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
07/20/24: Verification and Attack Synthesis for Network Protocols, Max von Hippel
07/06/24: The Algebraic Structure of Infinite Craft, Arthur O’Dwyer [VIDEO] [AUDIO] [SLIDES]
06/22/24: npm install everything, Evan Boehs [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
06/08/24: Compressing a JSON Parser Beyond Comprehension, June Marcuse [VIDEO] [ROP STUFF] [MORE ROP STUFF]
05/18/24: `sage --pip install torch` and Other Superhero Origin Stories, Brennon Brimhall
04/20/24: Chess-GPT's Internal World Model, Adam Karvonen [AUDIO] [VIDEO]
04/12/24: DY Fuzzing: Formal Dolev-Yao Models Meet Cryptographic Protocol Fuzz Testing, Max Ammann [AUDIO] [VIDEO]
03/24/24: Pegasus Panel, Jonathan Rugman, Raya Sharbain, Elina Castillo Jimenéz, Prashant Anantharaman, and Hinako Sugiyama, in conversation with Holmes Wilson [AUDIO] [VIDEO]
03/08/24: Bitwuzla: A New SMT Solver For Bit-Precise Reasoning, Mathias Preiner [AUDIO] [VIDEO]
02/24/24: Protocol Analysis using Real Analysis in ACL2, Max von Hippel
02/16/24: Q&A on Verified Elections, Joe Kiniry
1/27/24: Q&A on Entrepreneurship, Kraettli Epperson
01/13/24: How to Fund your Projects by Remembering One Number, Joe Shiraef [VIDEO]
01/06/24: NLP Café #1: Semantic Arithmetic for Visualizing Natural Language, Jefferson Richards [VIDEO] [CODE]
12/15/23: Q&A on Puzzles, Roger Barkan in conversation with Jacob Denbeaux [Puzzle Builder] [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
12/01/23: Cascade: CPU Fuzzing via Intricate Program Generation, Flavien Solt
11/19/23: Low Cost Robotics and Semi Open-Sourced Automation, Jan Hennecke [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
11/04/23: Logic in Color, Christian Williams [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
10/21/23: How to Write a Coequation, Todd Schmid [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
10/07/23: Artificial Intelligence, Openness, and "Existential" Risk: Well Informed Vibes on What is Hype and What is Real, Avijit Ghosh, David Widder, and Fabio Tollon, moderated by Wei Sun [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
09/17/23: Open Problems in Probabilistic Programming Semantics, Eli Sennesh [VIDEO] [AUDIO] [TEXTBOOK]
09/09/23: Transferable and Fixable Proofs, Bill Dalessandro [VIDEO] [AUDIO] [RELATED PAPER] [SLIDES]
09/01/23: The ChipSec Project, Nathaniel Mitchell and Dan Scott [VIDEO] [AUDIO] [SLIDES]
08/12/23: Packing Chromatic, Bernardo Anibal Subercaseaux Roa [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
07/15/23: Symmetries, Flat Minima, and the Conserved Quantities of Gradient Flow, Bo Zhao [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
06/30/23: ChatGPT on your Personal Corpus in Algovera, Richard Blythman [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
06/25/23: Unikernel Linux (UKL), Thomas Unger
06/23/23: MariusGNN, Roger Waleffe [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
06/16/23: Infinite Games -- Strategies, Logic, Theory, and Computation, Joel David Hamkins [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
06/10/23: Math is Not Relevant, Wei Sun [VIDEO]
05/20/23: A Data-Centric Introduction to Computing, Shriram Krishnamurthi [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
05/13/23: Automation of Medical Form Processing in the Context of Organ Transplantation, Marek Rychlik and Beaker Tanriover
04/29/23: Q&A on the Philosophy of Games, Christopher Ba Thi Nguyen in conversation with Wei Sun [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
04/21/23: Quantity Calculus in Natural Language Semantics, Elizabeth Coppock [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
04/02/23: Path Finding with Ghihorn, Jeffrey Gennari
03/17/23: The Process, Challenges, Struggles & Joys of Creating "How to Design Programs", Matthias Felleisen [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
03/03/23: Reverse Engineering UK Mobile Rail Tickets, eta [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
02/12/23: Web3 is Going Just Great, Molly White [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
02/03/23: How to Give a Good Mathematical Presentation, Anthony Bonato [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
01/28/23: Implications of Model-Based Phil/Sci for ML, Mel Andrews [AUDIO]
01/15/23: Quiet: a Web3 Alternative to Discord, Holmes Wilson [VIDEO]
01/06/23: Q&A: AppSec from OWASP to Present, John Viega [AUDIO]
12/10/22: Challenges Encountered Building Slow Roads, Anslo
12/03/22: Depths of Wikipedia, Annie Rauwerda [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
11/19/22: Nearly Optimal Property Preserving Hashing, LaKyah Tyner [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
11/06/22: Intro to Zero Knowledge Proofs, Gabriel Kaptchuk
10/23/22: Formal Analysis of Ethereum's GossipSub in ACL2s, Ankit Kumar and Max von Hippel
10/14/22: Cryptography with Quantum States, William Kretschmer [AUDIO] [VIDEO]
10/08/22: Mock Theta Functions, Amanda Folsom. [ALSO: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
09/17/22: Math Café #11: Prep for Dr. Folsom's Talk, Ammar Husain. [SLIDES]
09/16/22: A Conversation on Theorem Provers and Vulnerability Research, Addison Crump and Teddy Heinen
09/15/22: Math Café #10: Infinite Dimensional Analysis (Semi-Continuity), Cheng Zhang
09/04/22: Math Café #9: Infinite Dimensional Analysis (Continuity & Compactness), Cheng Zhang
09/03/22: A Conversation on Reverse Engineering Tooling, Matteo Giordiano
08/27/22: Blockchain Café #2: Applied Cryptography and APIs, Brennon Brimhall
08/07/22: Math Café #8: Infinite Dimensional Analysis (Continuity), Cheng Zhang
08/05/22: The Mobile Network Battlefield in Ukraine, Cathal McDaid
07/29/22: A Conversation on Reverse Engineering and Symbolic Execution, Boyan Milanov
07/17/22: Math Café #7: Infinite Dimensional Analysis (Filters), Cheng Zhang
07/16/22: The Crypto Crash(es), Cristiano Teixeira
07/10/22: Math Café #6: Infinite Dimensional Analysis (Topologies & Nets), Cheng Zhang [NOTES]
06/19/22: Assessing Recycling, Displacement, and Environmental Impacts using an Economics-Informed Material System Model, John Ryter [AUDIO] [VIDEO]
06/11/22: An Open Discussion on Unionizing Graduate Students, Jacob Morrison and Jeremy Stepansky
06/05/22: Math Café #5: The Collatz Conjecture, Max von Hippel
05/28/22: Efficiently Modeling Long Sequences with Structured State Spaces, Albert Gu
05/20/22: Hybrid Systems: Not Just For Cars Anymore!, Kimberly Ayers [AUDIO] [VIDEO]
05/13/22: The Generalized Star Height Problem, Jean-Eric Pin [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
05/08/22: Math Café #4: Selected Topics in Kleene Algebra, Cheng Zhang
05/07/22: Math Café #3: Prep for Dr. Pin's Talk, Max von Hippel [NOTES] [SLIDES] [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
04/15/22: When Memory Guards are Crooked and Become Speculating Snitches, Andrea Mambretti [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
03/20/22: An Open Conversation on Web3, Spice DAO [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
03/13/22: Automated Attack Synthesis by Extracting Finite State Machines from Protocol Specification Documents, Maria Leonor Pacheco and Max von Hippel [CODE]
03/12/22: Live Coding: Making a Wordle Scraper and Solver, Jacob Denbeaux [CODE] [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
03/09/22: Q&A Regarding the War in Ukraine, Karin von Hippel
03/05/22: Seize the Means of Computation: the Big Tech Disassembly Manual, Cory Doctorow [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
03/04/22: Topology Homework Session #5: Liveness & Safety Properties
02/17/22: Quantum Computing in Plato's Cave, Daniel Burgarth [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
02/11/22: Math Café #2, lead by Sam Stites
02/10/22: Topology Homework Session #4: Homotopy Equivalence
02/09/22: Topology Homework Session #3: Continuity & Nullhomotopy
02/06/22: Trojan Source Attacks, Nicholas Boucher [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
01/22/22: How to Meet Interesting People by Accident & Design, Dan Ritter
01/20/22: Math Café #1, lead by Sam Stites
01/14/22: Topology Homework Session #2: The Quotient Topology
01/13/22: Topology Homework Session #1: The Zariski Topology over spec R
01/08/22: Covert C2 Channels, Kai Bernardini [VIDEO] [AUDIO] [GITHUB] [TWITTER]
12/15/21: Blockchain Café #1: Formal Methods for Smart Contracts [PAPER]
12/04/21: Feynman Integrals for a Mathematical Audience, Matt von Hippel [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
12/03/21: Aesthetic and Organic Complexity, Tyler Hobbs and Bill Cresco, moderated by Joe and Anya [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
10/29/21: It's Just Math and Other Lies We Tell Ourselves, Jade Edenstar Master
10/24/21: An Extensible and Modular Design and Implementation of Monte Carlo Tree Search for the JVM, Larkin Liu and (in attendance) Jun Tao Luo [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
10/15/21: Mathematical Programming Modulo Strings, Ankit Kumar [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
10/09/21: Types in PL Research vs Types in Julia, Julia Belyakova [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
09/25/21: Labor and Unions, Jacob Morrison and Adam Keller [NU Grad Union] [ALSO: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ]
09/18/21: Live Coding Hacking, Max von Hippel (pilot) and Jacob Denbeaux (copilot)
09/12/21: More Category Theory for More Cybernetics, Matteo Capucci [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
08/28/21: Compilation Techniques for Reconfigurable Analog Devices, Sara Achour [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
08/20/21: An Open Question in Category Theory, Alex Martsinkovsky [NOTES]
08/14/21: Minimal Length Representations of Database Provenance, Neha Makhija
07/30/21: Structural Attacks on Local Routing in Payment Channel Networks, Ben Weintraub [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
07/24/21: Linear Haskell, Artem Pelenitsyn [SLIDES] [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
07/10/21: Biology Café #1: The Illogical Nature of Chemical Nomenclature, Sophia von Hippel [NOTES] [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
06/25/21: Q&A, John Launchbury
06/13/21: Modeling Content and Context with Deep Relational Learning, Maria Leonor Pacheco [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
06/06/21: Quantum Café #5: Formal Methods (revisited)
05/29/21: Homotopy Type Theory 101, Carlo Angiuli [VIDEO] [AUDIO]
05/15/21: How Does a Health Actuary Estimate a Reserve?, Paul Johnson [CHANNEL]
05/01/21: Assembly Programming for M1, Chris Patuzzo [SLIDES]
04/25/21: Open Discussion
04/17/21: Quantum Café #4: Grand Unified Theories
04/11/21: Project Waves, Jacob Denbeaux [RELATED NEWS]
03/27/21: Introduction to Operational Security, The Grugq
03/21/21: Quantum Café #3: Syntax and Semantics [NOTES]
03/13/21: Concurrent Interpretations of Authorization Logic, Andrew K. Hirsch [PAPERS: 1,2,3] [SLIDES]
02/28/21: Quantum Café #2: Noisy Quantum Gates
02/27/21: Nuclear Non Proliferation - Role of Citizen Scientists, Frank N. von Hippel [COALITION]
02/21/21: Quantum Series #2: Entanglement, Billy Kalfus
02/13/21: Quantum Café #1: Formal Methods
02/07/21: Quantum Series #1: Fundamentals, Billy Kalfus
01/24/21: Algorithmic Artwork, Tyler Hobbs
01/09/21: Category Theory for Cybernetics, Jules Hedges
12/27/20: Dilemma Languages & Moral Codes, Max von Hippel [NOTES] [RELATED]
12/13/20: Compositional PCA for Microbiome data, Jamie Morton [CODE]
11/29/20: Parsing Real-World Data Formats, Prashant Anantharaman [SLIDES]
11/15/20: What Decentralization Is And Isn't, Paul Miller [SLIDES]
11/01/20: The Yoneda Lemma, Tyler Bryson [SLIDES] [BOOK]
10/17/20: Overfitting Management in ML Applications, Frances Hubis
10/03/20: Testing the Paradigm of Asteroidal Dust around White Dwarfs, Ted von Hippel
09/20/20: Implications of Collaborative Filtering, Jacob Denbeaux
09/06/20: Graph Representations for Higher Order Logic, Sam Stites
08/16/20: Programming from Galois Connections, Max von Hippel [NOTES full of typos]

Future Meetings

Other Venues

We're not the only rodeo in town. If you like us, be sure to check out the BU POPV Seminar (organized by our very own Cheng Zhang), PLTea, Intercats (from the Topos Institute), TMWYF, the Online Worldwide Seminar on Logic and Semantics, London Computation Club, Chaitin School of Engineering, IIT Bangalore Theory Club, Offbeat Computation Club, MIT CSAIL Security Seminar, MIT Categories Seminar, Waterloo ML+Logic Colloquium, Northeastern PL Seminar, CiviTech, MLAB, Engineering Book Club, gpLM Reading Group, and always-wonderful Northeastern Topology Seminar. If you like podcasts, we highly reccomend We Speak Your Language, The Iowa Type Theory Commute, and My Favorite Theorem. If you'd like your venue to be listed here as well, shoot Max an email.


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