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Qin Wang

Publications and source records attributed to Qin Wang.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Are Unreachable Nodes Truly Safe? Fully Eclipsing Monero's P2P Network!

Eclipse attacks isolate a blockchain node by monopolizing its network connections. Existing attacks on Monero (NDSS'25), Bitcoin (USENIX'15/21, S&P'20) and Ethereum (WWW'26) implicitly assume that the adversary can establish inbound connections, thereby excluding a large and practically dominant class of nodes: \textit{unreachable nodes} operating behind NATs. Such nodes are widely believed to enjoy stronger networks. We challenge this assumption and show that unreachability does NOT imply the expected resilience! We present the first eclipse attacks tailored to unreachable nodes in Monero's P2P network. Our attacks require no inbound access to the victim. Instead, they first poison the peerlist of reachable nodes, which subsequently act as propagation relays to contaminate unreachable nodes' whitelists. The adversary then exploits Monero's built-in outbound connection refresh logic to evict benign neighbors and eventually monopolize all outbound connections. We instantiate this strategy in two attacks: Nyx, which targets long-running unreachable nodes and achieves a complete and persistent eclipse through network-wide poisoning; and Moros, a stealthier attack that exploits the bootstrapping phase to rapidly eclipse newly joined unreachable nodes. We ethically evaluate both attacks. Nyx is validated via large-scale simulations on a Monero network constructed using the SEED Emulator, while Moros is demonstrated on the Monero mainnet against controlled targets. Our results show that unreachable nodes can be reliably driven into stable, long-lived eclipse states. We also propose countermeasures.

cs.CR

FlowShield: cryptocurrency anti-money laundering with transaction semantics parsing and fund flow tracking

Cryptocurrency anti-money laundering (Crypto AML) is increasingly challenged by sophisticated laundering behaviors that rapidly fragment stolen assets through diverse semantics and across multiple blockchains. Existing Crypto AML methods often simplify transaction semantics, rely on topology-centric signals, or output isolated detection labels. In this paper, we present \textsc{FlowShield}, a Crypto AML framework for transaction-level laundering detection and investigator-facing report generation. \textsc{FlowShield} first recovers behavior-level semantics from observable relations, making laundering intents explicit. To trace value provenance and redistribution, \textsc{FlowShield} reconstructs fund-flow subgraphs from three complementary perspectives. It then employs a text--structure fusion mechanism, enabling the interplay between large language model (LLM)-encoded semantics and flow texts with graph convolutional network (GCN)-encoded structure. Beyond mere detection, \textsc{FlowShield} further generates readable suspicious activity reports (SARs), offering investigators concise summaries and explainable red flags. To address the data scarcity in multi-chain detection, we construct and open-source \textit{BybitML}, the first public multi-chain laundering dataset. We evaluate \textsc{FlowShield} on \textit{BybitML} and two public laundering datasets and experimental results demonstrate that \textsc{FlowShield} achieves the best overall performance, with an average F1 score of 98.0\%. Further behavior and SAR analyses demonstrate that \textsc{FlowShield} can reveal diverse laundering strategies and produce readable reports for investigating complex multi-hop fund flows.

cs.CR

SoK: Cross-Chain Transaction Identification and Matching

Cross-chain bridges, instant cryptocurrency exchanges, and centralized cross-ledger platforms move assets across an increasingly multi-chain ecosystem. However, these systems have repeatedly become targets of high-value attacks and channels for cross-chain money laundering. Cross-chain transactions are substantially harder to analyze than single-chain transactions: no single ledger records an entire cross-chain transfer, its evidence is scattered across the source chain, the destination chain, and off-chain systems, and the availability and reliability of that evidence vary widely across systems. In this paper, we present a systematization of knowledge (SoK) on cross-chain transaction identification and matching. First, we classify deposit and withdrawal identification methods into four approaches and transaction matching methods into three mechanisms: deterministic identifier matching, field-constraint heuristics, and model-assisted matching. We find that their applicability and reported performance are shaped mainly by the evidence the underlying system exposes, and we further examine how matched pairs support downstream attack detection and fund tracing. Second, we assess the availability of existing datasets and artifacts, finding that fewer than half remain obtainable, and distill three artifact failure modes. Finally, we outline four open challenges toward auditable, reproducible, and actionable cross-chain analysis.

cs.CR

Some Dwork-type $q$-supercongruences from a $_6\phi_5$ summation formula

With the help of a $_6\phi_5$ summation formula and Guo and Zudilin's method, we shall establish some Dwork-type $q$-supercongruences in this paper. When $q\to1$, these $q$-supercongruences are able to engender the corresponding supercongruences. One of them may be stated as follows: for any prime $p\geq5$ and any positive integer $s$, \begin{align*} &\sum_{k=0}^{p^s-1}(6k-1)\frac{(-\frac{1}{3})_k^3}{(1)_k^3} \equiv 0\pmod{p^{3s}}. \end{align*}

math.NT

Growth and characterization of GaN/Ga2O3 Nanowire Heterostructures for Ultraviolet Optoelectronics

Ultraviolet-range GaN/b-Ga2O3 heterostructures were fabricated and investigated in both planar and nanowire geometries using pulsed laser deposition and reactive magnetron sputtering from a liquid gallium target for b-Ga2O3 deposition, while both GaN nanowire arrays and planar p-type Mg-doped GaN layers were grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. Precise control of film uniformity and thickness was achieved as confirmed by structural and morphology studies using X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. Planar n-Ga2O3/p-GaN heterojunction diodes were electrically and photoelectronically characterized, exhibiting pronounced rectifying behavior, high forward current and a visible-blind ultraviolet photoresponse under zero external bias, demonstrating intrinsic self-powered operation. Furthermore, GaN/b-Ga2O3 core/shell nanowire heterostructures were developed and systematically studied with a focus on morphology control and process optimization. The influence of deposition parameters on shell thickness, uniformity, and tapering was investigated, enabling improved conformality of the b-Ga2O3 coating on the M-plane facets of GaN nanowires. The results highlight the viability of physical vapor deposition techniques for forming GaN/b-Ga2O3 heterostructures and establish a pathway toward nanowire-based ultraviolet optoelectronic devices.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci

JUNO: Aggregated Vector Consensus for Optimal Asynchronous Common Subset

In this paper, we propose \textit{aggregated vector consensus}, a new vector consensus primitive designed for asynchronous networks. The primitive achieves agreement by outputting a vector of values aggregated from independent process inputs. We then introduce \textsc{Juno}, an asynchronous common subset (ACS) protocol that fully implements our aggregated vector consensus to attain optimal $\mathcal{O}(n^2)$ message complexity. We further implement and evaluate \textsc{Juno} in comparison with the legacy HoneyBadgerBFT and the state-of-the-art Dory. Experiment results demonstrate its efficacy and efficiency. Our protocol demonstrates an average throughput performance improvement of 93\% compared with HoneyBadgerBFT and a 47\% improvement compared with Dory. Notably, our study makes significant progress in addressing the gap in applying vector consensus protocol in fully asynchronous networks.

cs.CR

Deanonymizing Monero Transactions in Tor Network

Monero is a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that deploys the Dandelion++ protocol and incorporates anonymity networks (such as Tor and I2P) to prevent malicious attackers from linking transactions with their source IPs. In this paper, we demonstrate that Monero's integration of the Tor network introduces a fundamental vulnerability: a Monero Tor node's originated transactions are exclusively forwarded to two outgoing Tor hidden service nodes (proxy nodes) prior to clearnet propagation, enabling an adversary to capture originated transactions by occupying the target node's outgoing connections. Based on this observation, we propose \textit{ProxyMark}, a three-stage deanonymization framework for the Monero Tor network, comprising node role identification, originated transaction identification, and node location deanonymization. Through experiments on the live Tor network, Monero mainnet, and testnet, we empirically demonstrate the effectiveness of \textit{ProxyMark} in successfully deanonymizing transactions originating from Monero nodes over Tor.

cs.CR

Supercritical fluid of quantum electrons in three-dimensional superconducting fullerides

The supercritical fluid (SCF) of quantum electrons at the Mott metal-insulator transition without symmetry breaking is one of the most elusive phenomena in strongly correlated electron physics. Prior studies of Cr-doped V2O3 and organic Mott systems reported discrepant critical exponents. A key limitation is that the scaling analysis relies on a single experimental observable, leaving the roles of phase coexistence, inhomogeneity, and percolation unaddressed. Here we report the first experimental identification of a thermodynamically equilibrated SCF phase and its associated Mott endpoint in the three-dimensional superconducting fullerides CsxRb3-xC60, using two independent probes of electrical conductivity and magnetic susceptibility, which reveal two distinct metal-insulator transition lines converging at a single Mott endpoint. A hypothesis-free two-particle analysis of magnetic susceptibilities yields a metal-insulator coexisting SCF by exhibiting the maximum two-phase mixing entropy, in agreement with a picture of a thermodynamically equilibrated Widom line. Simultaneously, conductivity scaling yields a critical exponent in the regime of quantum critical predictions. Our new dual-probe approach provides a unified microscopic picture of the Mott SCF with a characteristic length scale below current diffraction resolution, in addition to a new interpretation on the origin of superconducting Tc-dome.

cond-mat.str-el

Spectral Invariance and Gevrey Regularity for Groups with strongly subexponential growth

We study spectral invariance and Gevrey regularity for convolution operators with kernels in suitable weighted function spaces on locally compact groups equipped with a locally bounded length function $\ell$. The main analytic scale is given by the subexponential weights. For groups whose volume growth is bounded above by $e^{R^\gamma}$ for some $0<\gamma<1$, we establish spectral comparison result for compactly supported functions. For compactly supported Hermitian functions, we prove spectral radius invariance across the symmetric $q$-pseudofunction $*$-algebra, the weighted and unweighted group algebras, and the full and reduced group $C^*$-algebras. For unimodular groups satisfying strong subexponential growth of exponent at most $\beta$, we construct a Gevrey-Beurling operator algebra inside the unitized $q$-pseudofunction algebra. We prove that this algebra is inverse-closed and that its inclusion induces an isomorphism in topological $K$-theory. The inverse-closedness theorem may be viewed as a quantitative Gevrey-type noncommutative Wiener lemma. As an application, we show that whenever a convolution operators with kernels in the corresponding weighted Gevrey-Beurling space is invertible in the unitized $q$-pseudofunction algebra, then its inverse belongs to the same Gevrey-Beurling operator algebra and satisfies explicit Gevrey seminorm estimates. We also develop a relative theory for pairs of finitely generated groups using Schreier graph lengths and quasi-regular representations. This provides a subexponential analogue of rapid decay for group pairs, when subgroup is normal, it reduces to the usual theory on the quotient. The framework can apply to intermediate-growth examples, including the Grigorchuk group, and is stable under products with polynomial growth groups and under compact extensions.

math.OA

Gevrey Regularity and Compact Quantum Metric Spaces for $L^p$-Group Algebras

We introduce the beta-Gevrey lp-rapid decay property (GRD){beta,p}, for 0 < beta <= 1 and 1 <= p < infinity, for countable discrete groups. This property is a subexponential analogue of classical rapid decay, in which polynomial control is replaced by logarithmic subexponential control of order o(R^beta). We establish basic results for (GRD){beta,p}. We then apply this framework to compact quantum metric structures on reduced Lp-group algebras. We introduce strongly dense-core beta-Gevrey regular lp-spectral triples and give two classes of examples. For countable discrete groups satisfying (GRD)_{beta,p}, we prove, using Rieffel's criterion, that the corresponding Gevrey seminorms induce metrics on the Banach-algebra state space which metrize the weak-* topology. This yields compact quantum metric space structures in settings beyond classical rapid decay, including groups of intermediate growth such as the first Grigorchuk group.

math.FA

MIBE: Multi-subject Interaction Benchmark and Evaluator for Personalized Image Generation

Multi-subject personalized image generation requires the precise rendering of all requested reference identities and their specified interactions based on a guiding prompt. However, state-of-the-art models still struggle with this process, frequently omitting subjects, failing to preserve reference appearances, or misattributing interactions. Furthermore, existing metrics designed primarily for single-subject fidelity cannot reliably capture these errors, suffering severe degradation in ranking separability and failing to align with human preference as the subject count increases. To address this gap, we introduce Multi-subject Interaction Benchmark and Evaluator (MIBE), a unified framework comprising a Multi-subject Interaction Benchmark (MIB) and a Multi-subject Interaction Evaluator (MIE). MIB systematically covers diverse relation types and scene complexities through a decoupled data regime. This consists of a 60K-pair VLM-labeled Silver Set for scalable metric training and a 4K-pair double-blind Human Evaluation Gold Set covering a diverse range of state-of-the-art generators, with the Silver Set reaching 95.1% cross-VLM preference agreement. To demonstrate the utility of this benchmark, we present MIE, a lightweight, reference-conditioned evaluator trained exclusively on the Silver Set with a dual-head ranking and diagnosis objective. MIE exhibits strong cross-generator generalization on the Gold Set, achieving 0.922 overall pairwise accuracy against human preference, including 0.982 on seen generators and 0.884 on unseen generators. By outperforming a broad spectrum of baseline metrics, including CLIP and DINO variants, MIE demonstrates that diagnostic supervision can preserve ranking separability and human alignment where traditional evaluators collapse.

cs.CV

Can Trustless Agents Be Trusted? An Empirical Study of the ERC-8004 Decentralized AI Agent Ecosystem

As autonomous AI agents increasingly transact across organizational boundaries, a fundamental trust challenge emerges: how can an agent assess whether an unknown counterpart is trustworthy? The ERC-8004 protocol addresses this challenge with the first permissionless trust layer for AI agent economies, built around three on-chain registries for Identity, Reputation, and Validation. Despite its rapid adoption, the protocol has not been studied empirically, leaving it unclear whether the information it records provides a trustworthy basis for decision-making. To address this gap, we present the first empirical study of ERC-8004 across three chains: Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain (BSC), and Base, covering the period from protocol deployment through May 13, 2026. We crawl on-chain Identity and Reputation events, off-chain files, and x402 payment transactions. On the identity side, we find that most registrations are placeholders rather than active agents, with only a small fraction (3%, 4%, and 15% across Ethereum, BSC, and Base) exposing a valid ERC-8004 registration file with at least one live service endpoint. On the reputation side, we show that the Registry, as currently deployed, cannot function as a trust signal: values are not commensurable, feedback records are rarely grounded in verifiable interactions, and reputation can be manipulated at minimal cost. Consistent with these design weaknesses, we find that a substantial fraction of reviewers (73.5%, 59.2%, and 90.6% across Ethereum, BSC, and Base) exhibit coordinated Sybil behavior. After removing Sybil-flagged feedback, 15.8%, 77.9%, and 86.8% of rated agents, respectively, are left with no valid feedback. We then turn these findings into concrete recommendations for future revisions of ERC-8004. Our study yields actionable protocol-design implications and establishes an empirical baseline for research on AI agent markets.

cs.CR

DEFENGRAPH: Knowledge Graph-Enhanced LLMs for Blue Team Cyber Defense

Large Language Models (LLMs) show promise for supporting decision-making in cybersecurity, but their reliability in high-stakes, time-evolving environments remains limited due to hallucinations, poor temporal reasoning, and shallow grounding in system context. We introduce DEFENGRAPH, an LLM-driven assistant designed to support human defenders during cybersecurity incidents. DEFENGRAPH improves contextual reasoning by integrating a dual-layer Static-Dynamic Knowledge Graph (KG) with graph-based path retrieval, LLM-driven contextual filtering, and reasoning-based re-ranking. The framework grounds LLM outputs in both long-term domain knowledge and evolving event context, enabling faithful and temporally aware decision support. We evaluate DEFENGRAPH in a cyber defense setting using knowledge graphs constructed from heterogeneous security artifacts, including SIEM alerts, system topology, attacker behaviors, and prior defensive actions. The evaluation uses data collected during live Red vs. Blue team cyber range exercises simulating attacks on critical infrastructure, which generate realistic and noisy datasets reflecting real-world defender workflows and system dynamics. Evaluations across four prevalent LLMs show that DEFENGRAPH sets a new state-of-the-art: on GPT-4o it boosts reasoning-recall from 61.45\% to 73.49\% and ticket-action recall from 52.17% to 72.46% (precision 24.49\% to 29.24\%), with similar gains on LLaMA-3 (46.99\% to 61.45\%), DeepSeek-R1 (45.78\% to 56.63\%) and QWen-3 (51.81\% to 59.04\%), while surfacing up to 50 correct defense actions versus 36 for the next best baseline and holding fault rates steady.

cs.CR

The Proxy Knows Too Much: Sealing LLM API Routers with Attested TEEs

Agents increasingly access large language models (LLMs) through API routers. A router terminates the client's transport-layer security session and opens a separate upstream session, so it holds the full interaction in plaintext. This makes the router an application-layer man-in-the-middle: it can rewrite agent tool calls, swap dependencies for typosquatted packages, trigger attacks only under audit-evading conditions, and passively exfiltrate secrets. Existing client-side defenses are evadable. We propose AEGIS, a provider-transparent attested API router whose data path is a client-verified faithful passthrough. AEGISconfines plaintext handling to a small hardware-enclave component while leaving authentication, scheduling, accounting, and management on the untrusted host. The client verifies the enclave before releasing plaintext. The host can neither read nor alter the interaction, and plaintext leaves only toward destinations fixed by the measured image. We show that all four malicious-router attack classes succeed against a plaintext-access baseline and are blocked by AEGIS, including adaptive tests against the same boundary. The trusted path is $851$ lines, carries three provider-native APIs without conversion, and completes every request under real-provider workload and concurrency. In a seeded audit pilot, two commodity coding agents find eight and ten of ten planted invariant violations. The local relay overhead is about six milliseconds per request.

cs.CR

MaxProof: Scaling Mathematical Proof with Generative-Verifier RL and Population-Level Test-Time Scaling

We present MaxProof, a population-level test-time scaling framework for competition-level mathematical proof in the MiniMax-M3 series. M3 first trains three proof-oriented capabilities -- proof generation, proof verification, and critique-conditioned proof repair -- using a defense-in-depth generative verifier engineered for low false-positive rate. These capabilities are merged into a single released M3 model. At test time, MaxProof treats the model as a generator, verifier, refiner, and ranker, searches over a population of candidate proofs, and returns one final proof through tournament selection. With MaxProof test-time scaling, the M3 model reaches 35/42 on IMO 2025 and 36/42 on USAMO 2026, exceeding the human gold-medal threshold on both.

cs.LG

MHOT: Height-Optimized Authenticated Data Structure for Blockchain State Commitment

State root computation dominates (78%) blockchain block processing time. Ethereum's canonical authenticated data structure, i.e., Merkle Patricia Trie (MPT), suffers from severe tree-height growth and is vulnerable to \textit{Nurgle attacks} (SP'24), where adversaries inflate path depth via hash collisions and degrade system performance at negligible cost. Existing defenses increase node fanout (span) to bound tree height, but higher span inflates proof size exponentially. Prior work mitigates this trade-off using vector commitments, at the cost of trusted setup or expensive verification. We present \textsc{Mhot}, a height-optimal authenticated data structure for blockchain state commitment that preserves standard hash-based verification without trusted setup. Unlike MPT's fixed-prefix indexing, which couples span and fanout exponentially, \textsc{Mhot} indexes by discriminative bits that actually distinguish keys, achieving adaptive span with linear fanout coupling and provably minimal height. To prevent high fanout from inflating proofs, we introduce hierarchical proofs, a two-layer Merkle construction that reduces per-node proof overhead from O(k) to O(log k). On Ethereum mainnet workloads, \textsc{Mhot} achieves up to 9X higher write throughput, 4X lower write amplification, and 2X smaller proofs than MPT. Under Nurgle attacks, even when the adversary consumes an entire block's gas budget, \textsc{Mhot} maintains a 0% attack success rate (v.s., 99.97% for MPT). Our results, somewhat surprisingly, show that height optimality (not new crypto primitives!) is the key abstraction for scalable and attack-resilient blockchain state commitment.

cs.CR

Counterfactual Transport Flows for Offline Conservative Trajectory Refinement

Offline reinforcement learning (RL) offers a path to policy improvement from logged data alone, using historical returns or other measurable outcomes as world feedback. A key difficulty is improving observed behavior without extrapolating beyond what the offline data supports. We propose \emph{counterfactual transport flows}, a source-conditioned trajectory refinement framework for offline decision-making guided by world feedback. Given a low-feedback candidate trajectory, we construct local preference pairs from offline data by retrieving nearby trajectories in latent trajectory space with higher task-specific feedback, and use them as weak supervision for conservative refinement. The framework learns instance-specific refinement directions: at inference time, a refinement strength parameter controls how far the candidate trajectory is transported, enabling a trade-off between preserving the original behavior and applying stronger improvement. Experiments on D4RL benchmarks, including AntMaze and MuJoCo tasks, show that our method improves behavior from historical returns as world feedback, while providing interpretable trajectory-level refinement paths.

cs.LG

Swimming with Whales: Analysis of Power Imbalances in Stake-Weighted Governance

Voting methods weighted by stakes are the fundamental governance paradigm in Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchains. Such a paradigm is known to be prone to power distortions: a few users possessing large stakes may completely control decision making, even without owning the totality of the stakes. We study this phenomenon through the lens of computational social choice, focusing on the extent of power imbalances in stake-weighted voting when power is quantified using the Penrose-Banzhaf power index. Our work presents both analytical and empirical contributions. Analytically, we demonstrate that while a perfect alignment between power and relative stake ownership is generally unattainable, it can be approximated in expectation under specific conditions. Empirically, using data from a real-world on-chain governance system (Project Catalyst), we provide a more fine-grained understanding of the power imbalances that are likely to occur in current stake-weighted governance systems.

cs.AI