@article {3063, title = {Status Report on the Third Round of the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Process}, journal = {NIST}, year = {2022}, month = {7/2022}, abstract = {

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is in the process of selecting publickey cryptographic algorithms through a public, competition-like process. The new publickey cryptography standards will specify additional digital signature, public-key encryption, and key-establishment algorithms to augment Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 186-4, Digital Signature Standard (DSS), as well as NIST Special Publication (SP) 800-56A Revision 3, Recommendation for Pair-Wise Key-Establishment Schemes Using Discrete Logarithm Cryptography, and SP 800-56B Revision 2, Recommendation for Pair-Wise Key Establishment Using Integer Factorization Cryptography. It is intended that these algorithms will be capable of protecting sensitive information well into the foreseeable future, including after the advent of quantum computers.

This report describes the evaluation and selection process of the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization process third-round candidates based on public feedback and internal review. The report summarizes each of the 15 third-round candidate algorithms and identifies those selected for standardization, as well as those that will continue to be evaluated in a fourth round of analysis. The public-key encryption and key-establishment algorithm that will be standardized is CRYSTALS\–KYBER. The digital signatures that will be standardized are CRYSTALS\–Dilithium, FALCON, and SPHINCS+. While there are multiple signature algorithms selected, NIST recommends CRYSTALS\–Dilithium as the primary algorithm to be implemented. In addition, four of the alternate key-establishment candidate algorithms will advance to a fourth round of evaluation: BIKE, Classic McEliece, HQC, and SIKE. These candidates are still being considered for future standardization. NIST will also issue a new Call for Proposals for public-key digital signature algorithms to augment and diversify its signature portfolio.

}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.8413-upd1}, author = {Gorjan Alagic and Daniel Apon and David Cooper and Quynh Dang and Thinh Dang and John Kelsey and Jacob Lichtinger and Carl Miller and Dustin Moody and Rene Peralta and Ray Perlner and Angela Robinson} } @article {2676, title = {Status Report on the Second Round of the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Process}, journal = {NISTIR 8309}, year = {2020}, month = {07/2020}, abstract = {

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is in the process of selecting one or more public-key cryptographic algorithms through a public, competition-like process. The new public-key cryptography standards will specify one or more additional digital signatures, public-key encryption, and key-establishment algorithms to augment Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 186-4, Digital Signature Standard (DSS), as well as NIST Special Publication (SP) 800-56A Revision 3, Recommendation for Pair-Wise Key-Establishment Schemes Using Discrete Logarithm Cryptography, and SP 800-56B Revision 2, Recommendation for Pair-Wise Key Establishment Using Integer Factorization Cryptography. It is intended that these algorithms will be capable of protecting sensitive information well into the foreseeable future, including after the advent of quantum computers.

The NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Process began in 2017 with 69 candidate algorithms that met both the minimum acceptance criteria and submission requirements. The first round lasted until January 2019, during which candidate algorithms were evaluated based on their security, performance, and other characteristics. NIST selected 26 algorithms to advance to the second round for more analysis. This report describes the evaluation and selection process, based on public feedback and internal review, of the second-round candidates. The report summarizes the 26 second-round candidate algorithms and identifies those selected to move forward to the third round of the competition. The third-round finalist public-key encryption and key-establishment algorithms are Classic McEliece, CRYSTALS-KYBER, NTRU, and SABER. The third-round finalists for digital signatures are CRYSTALS-DILITHIUM, FALCON, and Rainbow. These finalists will be considered for standardization at the end of the third round. In addition, eight alternate candidate algorithms will also advance to the third round: BIKE, FrodoKEM, HQC, NTRU Prime, SIKE, GeMSS, Picnic, and SPHINCS+. These additional candidates are still being considered for standardization, although this is unlikely to occur at the end of the third round. NIST hopes that the announcement of these finalists and additional candidates will serve to focus the cryptographic community\’s attention during the next round.

}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.8309}, author = {Gorjan Alagic and Jacob Alperin-Sheriff and Daniel Apon and David Cooper and Quynh Dang and John Kelsey and Yi-Kai Liu and Carl Miller and Dustin Moody and Rene Peralta and Ray Perlner and Angela Robinson and Daniel Smith-Tone} } @article {2100, title = {Thermodynamic Analysis of Classical and Quantum Search Algorithms}, year = {2017}, month = {2017/09/29}, abstract = {

We analyze the performance of classical and quantum search algorithms from a thermodynamic perspective, focusing on resources such as time, energy, and memory size. We consider two examples that are relevant to post-quantum cryptography: Grover\’s search algorithm, and the quantum algorithm for collisionfinding. Using Bennett\’s \“Brownian\” model of low-power reversible computation, we show classical algorithms that have the same asymptotic energy consumption as these quantum algorithms. Thus, the quantum advantage in query complexity does not imply a reduction in these thermodynamic resource costs. In addition, we present realistic estimates of the resource costs of quantum and classical search, for near-future computing technologies. We find that, if memory is cheap, classical exhaustive search can be surprisingly competitive with Grover\’s algorithm.

}, url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.10510}, author = {Ray Perlner and Yi-Kai Liu} }