# Sylvain Kerkour

> Sylvain Kerkour is a French software engineer, security researcher, and author best known for 'Black Hat Rust' - a hands-on book applying offensive security techniques with the Rust programming language. Self-described as a 'professional troublemaker', he writes about programming, hacking, and entrepreneurship at kerkour.com under the tagline '(Ab)using technology for fun & profit'. He is a vocal advocate for supply chain security in the Rust ecosystem and creator of the Bloom open-technology platform and the ChaCha20-BLAKE3 AEAD cipher implementation.

- **Role:** Independent Engineer & Author
- **Organizations:** PHASER SECURITY, Bloom
- **Nationality:** French
- **Known for:** Author of 'Black Hat Rust' - 4,300+ GitHub stars on companion code repository, Created ChaCha20-BLAKE3 AEAD cipher with SIMD acceleration, Built Bloom - open-source de-Google platform (1,500+ GitHub stars)

## Career timeline

- **2019-2021** — Built Bloom - an open-source, privacy-focused alternative to Google Workspace (Notes, Files, Calendar, Contacts, Newsletters)
- **2021** — Published 'Black Hat Rust' - Applied Offensive Security with the Rust Programming Language
- **2022-2024** — Launched kerkour.com newsletter covering Rust, Go, security, and entrepreneurship
- **2024** — Published influential article 'Async Rust: The new billion-dollar mistake?' sparking major Hacker News discussion
- **2024** — Published 'Rust has a HUGE supply chain security problem' raising awareness in the Rust community

## Achievements

- Author of 'Black Hat Rust' - 4,300+ GitHub stars on companion code repository
- Created ChaCha20-BLAKE3 AEAD cipher with SIMD acceleration
- Built Bloom - open-source de-Google platform (1,500+ GitHub stars)
- Sparked major community debate on async Rust patterns
- Published widely-cited research on Rust supply chain security vulnerabilities
- Runs kerkour.com blog/newsletter on programming, hacking, and entrepreneurship

## Latest updates

- **2024-07** — Published 'Rust has a HUGE supply chain security problem' generating significant discussion on programming.dev and Hacker News
- **2024-07** — Article 'Async Rust: The new billion-dollar mistake?' sparked major Hacker News debate about async programming patterns
- **2024** — Continuing newsletter/blog at kerkour.com covering Rust, security, and entrepreneurship

## Links

- Website: https://kerkour.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sylvain-kerkour-14777aa8/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/z0mbie42
- GitHub: https://github.com/skerkour

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/sylvain-kerkour
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-04-20