An inconvenient truth about modern cryptography

Caute_cautim — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 00:15:34 GMT

Hi All

For a week in April of 2024, the cryptologic research community was trying to make sense of a freshly announced result. Yilei Chen of Tsinghua University in Beijing, China published a paper, “Quantum Algorithms for Lattice Problems” on the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR)’s ePrint Archive. The author claimed to have discovered a quantum polynomial-time algorithm for solving certain mathematical problems, which happen to be closely related to the new post-quantum cryptographic algorithms ML-KEM and ML-DSA which NIST plans finalize this year in advance of a significant national push for post-quantum cryptography. If true, this could have led to a loss of confidence in lattice-based techniques, with huge implications for national policy.

A week later, a flaw was found in the paper. The author has acknowledged that the main claim is no longer justified and they did not see any workaround. So the worry has now passed regarding this paper. But it seems alarming that so much time and money building up cyber infrastructures that rest on cryptographic algorithms could potentially be undone by a new discovery. It seems like a huge risk. Is there any way to avoid the risk? Why have we made the decision to accept it?

https://pqcc.org/an-inconvenient-truth-about-modern-cryptography/

Regards

Caute_Cautim

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An inconvenient truth about modern cryptography