Choosing QuePaxa, an unusual consensus algorithm
Cloudflare is building an experimental consensus service using a never-before-deployed consensus algorithm, QuePaxa. In this post we explain how QuePaxa works and why we chose it.
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Research
The post-quantum future of web privacy
Cryptographic protocols like Privacy Pass help keep web sites safe from abuse while keeping their users private. This post looks at the quantum threat to these protocols, and some new post-quantum cryptography that may help close the gap.
Introducing Clairic, a new System One class of extraction models
Clairic is a new model from Cloudflare that is a System One extraction modeI, capable of extracting, computing, estimating, and forecasting data from unstructured inputs.
Support for modern cryptographic algorithms in Workers
Cloudflare Workers is adding opt-in support for post-quantum-resistant algorithms ML-KEM and ML-DSA. You can try it today.
1.1.1.1 now supports post-quantum DNSSEC, all 2,420 bytes of it
1.1.1.1 now validates DNSSEC signatures using NIST’s post-quantum ML-DSA-44 algorithm. Here is how we manage 2,420-byte signatures and downgrade risks at scale.
Automatic Key Exchange: faster, post-quantum secure origin handshakes for 45 billion daily connections (and counting)
Automatic Key Exchange probes TLS 1.3-capable customer origins to learn which key agreement algorithms they support. We then lead with the most secure algorithm when connecting to the origin, preferring post-quantum connections wherever the origin supports it.
A revisit of remote Spectre attacks on Cloudflare Workers
In 2024 and 2025, we reassessed remote Spectre attacks on our Workers infrastructure. We share details about the new attack primitives like Spectre gadgets, remote timers, achieving co-location and how new defenses further harden Cloudflare Workers.
BGP Role model: tracking the adoption of RFC 9234
RFC 9234 lets routers reject route leaks on their own, using BGP Roles and the Only to Customer attribute. We measured who has deployed it, and found two Tier 1 networks unexpectedly stripping OTC.
Post-quantum authentication to origins is now supported
Cloudflare now supports post-quantum (PQ) authentication when connecting to customer origin servers via Authenticated Origin Pulls and Custom Origin Trust Store. This is the first step towards providing PQ authentication for all Cloudflare products.
Why we cannot wait for better post-quantum signature algorithms
NIST is advancing nine new post-quantum signature algorithms as potential candidates for future standardization. We take a closer look at all of them, and argue that while they are in the works and show great potential, we should use ML-DSA for now — the best currently available.
Introducing Meerkat: an experiment in global consensus
Cloudflare Research is building a global consensus service called Meerkat that uses a new consensus algorithm called QuePaxa. We plan to use Meerkat to build a strongly consistent, fault-tolerant key-value store, and other applications.
Build your own vulnerability harness
We break down the technical architecture behind our multi-stage vulnerability discovery harness and automated triage loop. Learn how we manage state controls, squash false positives through adversarial review, and route around LLM context limits.
Moving past bots vs. humans
As AI assistants and privacy proxies challenge the capabilities of traditional bot detection, the Web needs new models for accountability. We believe that control should remain with the client, and that an open ecosystem of anonymous credentials is key to preserving user privacy while protecting origins from abuse.
Unweight: how we compressed an LLM 22% without sacrificing quality
Running LLMs across Cloudflare’s network requires us to be smarter and more efficient about GPU memory bandwidth. That’s why we developed Unweight, a lossless inference-time compression system that achieves up to a 22% model footprint reduction, so that we can deliver faster and cheaper inference than ever before.
Why we're rethinking cache for the AI era
The explosion of AI-bot traffic, representing over 10 billion requests per week, has opened up new challenges and opportunities for cache design. We look at some of the ways AI bot traffic differs from humans, how this impacts CDN cache, and some early ideas for how Cloudflare is designing systems to improve the AI and human experience.
Bringing more transparency to post-quantum usage, encrypted messaging, and routing security
Cloudflare Radar has added new tools for monitoring PQ adoption, KT logs for messaging, and ASPA routing records to track the Internet's migration toward more secure encryption and routing standards.
React2Shell and related RSC vulnerabilities threat brief: early exploitation activity and threat actor techniques
Early activity indicates that threat actors quickly integrated this vulnerability into their scanning and reconnaissance routines and targeted critical infrastructure including nuclear fuel, uranium and rare earth elements. We outline the tactics they appear to be using and how Cloudflare is protecting customers.
Fresh insights from old data: corroborating reports of Turkmenistan IP unblocking and firewall testing
Cloudflare used historical data to investigate reports of potential new firewall tests in Turkmenistan. Shifts in TCP resets/timeouts across ASNs corroborate large-scale network control system changes.
