Keynote: Oscar Koeroo on Post-Quantum Cryptography

Oscar Koeroo opened the day with a keynote that was both technical and strategic. He talked about the shift to post-quantum cryptography: why the transition is moving so slowly, the choices we still need to make and the role of the Netherlands and Europe in this process. It was interesting to learn how complex this shift actually is and how many technical and organizational challenges come with it.

You might think we're already far along, since many technical problems have been solved. However, Koeroo showed that there are still many blind spots you wouldn't immediately consider. Some older systems rely so heavily on classical cryptography that they can't simply be adapted. There's no good 'intermediate layer' that would allow an easy transition. Because of that, the new technology still can't be applied everywhere. His talk gave a much clearer picture of the dilemmas happening behind the scenes in the cryptography that will soon need to protect us from quantum computers.

Traffic at 3am?

Another session that stuck with me focused on something that affects anyone with a website: AI bots scraping content. Imagine your site being flooded at 3 AM by bots sending request after request, using your content to train AI models. It felt a bit like playing chess against an opponent who invents their own rules.

What I found interesting were the different strategies discussed: adjusting your robots.txt or intentionally influencing training data, also called 'poisoning the soup'. It became clear that content owners are increasingly confronted with a more advanced AI ecosystem and that protecting your content is becoming a complex challenge.

Frank talks AI

everywhere and can create hyper-realistic deepfakes. You can, for example, place Mark Rutte on a canal in Utrecht or generate a video call where you look like Mr. Bean, which looks completely convincing. Frank even showed a video where AI translated and dubbed his own recording flawlessly into other languages like French and German. His message was clear: AI is more than a hype; it's a technology that is truly transforming our world, bringing both new risks and new opportunities. Frank gave a down-to-earth reflection on AI and its impact on our world. AI is now

Less maintenance, more freedom

For the web developers among us, there was a session on simplifying website production using Silex. The idea is that the current WordPress ecosystem often leads to a lot of maintenance and less freedom because of all the plugins and dependencies. Silex offers a no-code, open-source alternative that lets you build lightweight, secure and open-source websites.

My personal takeaway

What impressed me most was how broad the conference was: from theoretical cryptography to AI and hands-on web design. At the same time, it felt like a community of people who truly understand what's going on, with plenty of space to discuss technical challenges and future developments. Overall, the NLUUG Autumn Conference was a great mix of knowledge sharing, critical thinking and practical inspiration.