All Research tracks

Cryptography & Post-Quantum

The standardized KEM and leading signatures are almost all lattice- or hash-based. A single break in the lattice family would be catastrophic, which is exactly why NIST keeps non-lattice backups. This series is the honest tour of the code-based and multivariate alternatives - McEliece, HQC, BIKE, and the multivariate schemes - and what they cost. Grounded in the primary papers and the fourth-round status.

12 series · 60 articles

Beyond Lattices

1Why Assumption Diversity Matters: The Systemic Risk of a Single-Family BreakRead Listen

2Code-Based Cryptography: Classic McEliece, Syndrome Decoding, and a Sixty-Year Track RecordRead Listen

3HQC and BIKE: Quasi-Cyclic Codes, the Backup-KEM Decision, and Decoding-Failure Trade-offsRead Listen

4Multivariate Cryptography: The MQ Problem, Why Rainbow Fell, and What Still StandsRead Listen

5When to Reach for a Non-Lattice Scheme: A Decision Framework over Size, Maturity, and RiskRead Listen

Homomorphic Encryption

1Computing on Ciphertext: The FHE Promise, Noise Growth, and Why Bootstrapping Is the Central IdeaRead Listen

2The Scheme Families: BGV/BFV Exact Integers versus CKKS Approximate RealsRead Listen

3Bootstrapping and Its Cost: Refreshing Noise and the Parameter, Security, Performance TriangleRead Listen

4Private Inference on Neural Networks: Approximating Non-Linearities Under FHERead Listen

5FHE versus TEEs versus MPC: An Honest Comparison for Confidential LLM ServingRead Listen

Lattice Foundations

1Lattices and Their Hard Problems: SVP, CVP, and the Geometry of SecurityRead Listen

2Learning With Errors: The Distribution, the Decision-Search Equivalence, and Regev's ReductionRead Listen

3Ring-LWE and Module-LWE: Buying Efficiency with Algebraic StructureRead Listen

4Parameters and the Security Estimate: Core-SVP, BKZ Block Size, and NIST LevelsRead Listen

5Where the Assumptions Could Fail: Algebraic and Dual Attacks on Structured LatticesRead Listen

ML-KEM End to End

1From LWE to a Public-Key Scheme: Compression, Rounding, and a Secret Hidden in NoiseRead Listen

2KEMs and IND-CCA, Defined: What a Key-Encapsulation Mechanism Must SurviveRead Listen

3The Fujisaki-Okamoto Transform: From Passive to Active Security by Re-EncryptionRead Listen

4Decapsulation Failures and Their Consequences: Failure-Boosting AttacksRead Listen

5Implementation Realities: The NTT, Constant-Time Decapsulation, and the Parameter SetsRead Listen

Secure Multi-Party Computation

1The MPC Guarantee, Defined: Computing Without Revealing Inputs, and the Adversary ModelsRead Listen

2Secret Sharing and Threshold Cryptography: Shamir, Additive Shares, and Threshold DecryptionRead Listen

3Garbled Circuits and GMW: Two Routes to General Multi-Party Computation and Their Trade-offsRead Listen

4Private Set Intersection and Federated Primitives: The Workhorses of Privacy-Preserving JoinsRead Listen

5MPC for Machine Learning: Federated Learning, Secure Aggregation, and the Confidential-Computing TrioRead Listen

Post-Quantum Signatures

1What a Signature Must Guarantee: EUF-CMA and the Two Roads to ItRead Listen

2ML-DSA: Fiat-Shamir with Aborts and the Transcript That Leaks NothingRead Listen

3SLH-DSA: Signing from Hashing Alone, and the Hypertree That Buys StatelessnessRead Listen

4Stateful Hash-Based Signatures: XMSS, LMS, and the Rule That Must Never BreakRead Listen

5Choosing a Signature: A Decision Framework over Assumptions, Size, and Operational RiskRead Listen

PQC Implementation Security

1The Side-Channel Threat Model for Post-Quantum CryptographyRead Listen

2Timing and the Decapsulation Oracle: When Non-Constant-Time Handling Leaks the PlaintextRead Listen

3Power and Electromagnetic Attacks on the NTT and the SamplerRead Listen

4Masking and Countermeasures: Arithmetic-to-Boolean Shares and the Cost of Provable ResistanceRead Listen

5Verifying Constant-Time: Tooling and Methodology to Demonstrate a Leak-Free ImplementationRead Listen

Migrating to Post-Quantum

1Hybrid Key Exchange, Done Right: Combining Classical and Post-Quantum So Either Can FailRead Listen

2Post-Quantum in TLS 1.3: The X25519MLKEM768 Group and the MTU RealitiesRead Listen

3Certificates and PKI Under Post-Quantum: Signature Bloat and Chain StrategiesRead Listen

4Crypto-Agility as an Architecture Property: Escaping the Hard-Coded-Primitive TrapRead Listen

5A Migration Methodology: Inventory, Shelf-Life Risk, Hybridize, and MeasureRead Listen

Threat Modeling PQC Migration

1Framing the Post-Quantum Threat Model: Assets, Adversaries, and BoundariesRead Listen

2Harvest-Now-Decrypt-Later as the Anchor Threat: Building a Data-at-Risk InventoryRead Listen

3Downgrade, Rollback, and Negotiation Attacks: The Adversary That Strips the PQCRead Listen

4The Migration's Own Attack Surface: Combiners, Dual Stacks, and Key-Management GapsRead Listen

5A Post-Quantum Threat-Modeling Playbook: Inventory, Attack Trees, Controls, and a CI GateRead Listen

Quantum Threat Quantified

1Shor's Algorithm, Structurally: Period-Finding and the Quantum Fourier TransformRead Listen

2Grover and the Symmetric World: Why the Speedup Only Halves SecurityRead Listen

3From Logical to Physical Qubits: The Surface-Code Cost of a Real RSA BreakRead Listen

4Resource Estimates and Timelines: Reading the Numbers CriticallyRead Listen

5Mosca's Inequality: Turning Data Shelf-Life into a Migration PriorityRead Listen

Symmetric Crypto Quantum Era

1Grover Against Block Ciphers: The Quadratic Speedup, Double the Key Length, and the Parallelization CaveatsRead Listen

2Hash Functions Under Quantum Search: Pre-image versus Collision, and Why Grover Does Not Halve Collision ResistanceRead Listen

3AES-256 and SHA-384/512 as the Safe Floor: The Concrete Security Margins for the Top LevelsRead Listen

4Authenticated Encryption and Key Commitment: AEAD Guarantees and the Commitment Gap for AgentsRead Listen

5Where Symmetric Assumptions Are Load-Bearing: Hash-Based Signatures, KDFs, and the PQC Standards ThemselvesRead Listen

Zero-Knowledge Proofs

1Interactive Proofs and Zero-Knowledge, Defined: Completeness, Soundness, and the SimulatorRead Listen

2From Interactive to Non-Interactive: Fiat-Shamir, Commitments, and the Random-Oracle CaveatRead Listen

3SNARKs: Succinct Arguments, the Arithmetic-Circuit Pipeline, and the Trusted-Setup QuestionRead Listen

4STARKs and Transparency: Hash-Based, Post-Quantum-Plausible Proofs Without Trusted SetupRead Listen

5Proving an ML Inference: zkML, the Committed-Input Guarantee, and the Honest CostRead Listen