CRYSTALS-Dilithium: A lattice-based digital signature scheme

In this paper, we present the lattice-based signature scheme Dilithium, which is a component of the CRYSTALS (Cryptographic Suite for Algebraic Lattices) suite that was submitted to NIST’s call for post-quantum cryptographic standards. The design of the scheme avoids all uses of discrete Gaussian sampling and is easily implementable in constant-time. For the same security levels, our scheme has a public key that is 2.5X smaller than the previously most efficient lattice-based schemes that did not use Gaussians, while having essentially the same signature size. In addition to the new design, we significantly improve the running time of the main component of many lattice-based constructions – the number theoretic transform. Our AVX2-based implementation results in a speed-up of roughly a factor of 2 over the previously best algorithms that appear in the literature. The techniques for obtaining this speed-up also have applications to other lattice-based schemes

Distribution, incidence and farmers knowledge of banana Xanthomonas wilt in Burundi

Banana Xanthomonas wilt (BXW) is a devastating bacterial disease caused by Xanthomonas campestris pv. musacearum. The disease was simultaneously reported in Cankuzo and Bubanza provinces, Burundi, in November 2010. However, the extent to which the disease has spread to other banana growing regions in the country is unknown. Therefore, to ascertain the distribution and incidence of the disease and farmers’ knowledge on measures to control the disease, a survey was conducted in all 16 banana growing provinces of Burundi in August 2011. A total of 208 farms were sampled, selecting six farms per surveyed commune, three affected and three non-affected. The survey was conducted using a structured questionnaire. The disease was present in 10 out of 16 provinces constituting all agricultural lands in Burundi. The highest incidence was recorded in Ruyigi province (34%), where the Kayinja system is dominant and the lowest in Muyinga (3%), where the East African Highland bananas (EAHB) dominate. Awareness of BXW symptoms, modes of spread and control measures was generally low, ranging from 8 to 30% of households surveyed. The limited knowledge of the disease among farmers was thought to be largely responsible for driving the epidemic in Burundi

Ring-LWE:applications to cryptography and their efficient realization

© Springer International Publishing AG 2016. The persistent progress of quantum computing with algorithms of Shor and Proos and Zalka has put our present RSA and ECC based public key cryptosystems at peril. There is a flurry of activity in cryptographic research community to replace classical cryptography schemes with their post-quantum counterparts. The learning with errors problem introduced by Oded Regev offers a way to design secure cryptography schemes in the post-quantum world. Later for efficiency LWE was adapted for ring polynomials known as Ring-LWE. In this paper we discuss some of these ring-LWE based schemes that have been designed. We have also drawn comparisons of different implementations of those schemes to illustrate their evolution from theoretical proposals to practically feasible schemes

CRYSTALS - Kyber: A CCA-secure Module-Lattice-Based KEM

Rapid advances in quantum computing, together with the announcement by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to define new standards for digital-signature, encryption, and key-establishment protocols, have created significant interest in post-quantum cryptographic schemes. This paper introduces Kyber (part of CRYSTALS - Cryptographic Suite for Algebraic Lattices - a package submitted to NIST post-quantum standardization effort in November 2017), a portfolio of post-quantum cryptographic primitives built around a key-encapsulation mechanism (KEM), based on hardness assumptions over module lattices. Our KEM is most naturally seen as a successor to the NEWHOPE KEM (Usenix 2016). In particular, the key and ciphertext sizes of our new construction are about half the size, the KEM offers CCA instead of only passive security, the security is based on a more general (and flexible) lattice problem, and our optimized implementation results in essentially the same running time as the aforementioned scheme. We first introduce a CPA-secure public-key encryption scheme, apply a variant of the Fujisaki-Okamoto transform to create a CCA-secure KEM, and eventually construct, in a black-box manner, CCA-secure encryption, key exchange, and authenticated-key-exchange schemes. The security of our primitives is based on the hardness of Module-LWE in the classical and quantum random oracle models, and our concrete parameters conservatively target more than 128 bits of post-quantum security

CRYSTALS - Kyber: A CCA-secure Module-Lattice-Based KEM

Rapid advances in quantum computing, together with the announcement by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to define new standards for digitalsignature, encryption, and key-establishment protocols, have created significant interest in post-quantum cryptographic schemes. This paper introduces Kyber (part of CRYSTALS - Cryptographic Suite for Algebraic Lattices - a package submitted to NIST post-quantum standardization effort in November 2017), a portfolio of post-quantum cryptographic primitives built around a key-encapsulation mechanism (KEM), based on hardness assumptions over module lattices. Our KEM is most naturally seen as a successor to the NEWHOPE KEM (Usenix 2016). In particular, the key and ciphertext sizes of our new construction are about half the size, the KEM offers CCA instead of only passive security, the security is based on a more general (and flexible) lattice problem, and our optimized implementation results in essentially the same running time as the aforementioned scheme. We first introduce a CPA-secure public-key encryption scheme, apply a variant of the Fujisaki-Okamoto transform to create a CCA-secure KEM, and eventually construct, in a black-box manner, CCA-secure encryption, key exchange, and authenticated-key-exchange schemes. The security of our primitives is based on the hardness of Module-LWE in the classical and quantum random oracle models, and our concrete parameters conservatively target more than 128 bits of postquantum security

A multi-start heuristic for multiplicative depth minimization of boolean circuits

In this work we propose a multi-start heuristic which aims at minimizing the multiplicative depth of boolean circuits. The multiplicative depth objective is encountered in the field of homomorphic encryption where ciphertext size depends on the number of consecutive multiplications. The heuristic is based on rewrite operators for multiplicative depth-2 paths. Even if the proposed rewrite operators are simple and easy to understand the experimental results show that they are rather powerful. The multiplicative depth of the benchmarked circuits was hugely improved. In average the obtained multiplicative depths were lower by more than 3 times than the initial ones. The proposed rewrite operators are not limited to boolean circuits and can also be used for arithmetic circuits

Nitrogen uptake and internal recycling in Zostera marina exposed to oyster farming: eelgrass potential as a natural biofilter

Oyster farming in estuaries and coastal lagoons frequently overlaps with the distribution of seagrass meadows, yet there are few studies on how this aquaculture practice affects seagrass physiology. We compared in situ nitrogen uptake and the productivity of Zostera marina shoots growing near off-bottom longlines and at a site not affected by oyster farming in San Quintin Bay, a coastal lagoon in Baja California, Mexico. We used benthic chambers to measure leaf NH4 (+) uptake capacities by pulse labeling with (NH4)-N-15 (+) and plant photosynthesis and respiration. The internal N-15 resorption/recycling was measured in shoots 2 weeks after incubations. The natural isotopic composition of eelgrass tissues and vegetative descriptors were also examined. Plants growing at the oyster farming site showed a higher leaf NH4 (+) uptake rate (33.1 mmol NH4 (+) m(-2) day(-1)) relative to those not exposed to oyster cultures (25.6 mmol NH4 (+) m(-2) day(-1)). We calculated that an eelgrass meadow of 15-16 ha (which represents only about 3-4 % of the subtidal eelgrass meadow cover in the western arm of the lagoon) can potentially incorporate the total amount of NH4 (+) excreted by oysters (similar to 5.2 x 10(6) mmol NH4 (+) day(-1)). This highlights the potential of eelgrass to act as a natural biofilter for the NH4 (+) produced by oyster farming. Shoots exposed to oysters were more efficient in re-utilizing the internal N-15 into the growth of new leaf tissues or to translocate it to belowground tissues. Photosynthetic rates were greater in shoots exposed to oysters, which is consistent with higher NH4 (+) uptake and less negative delta C-13 values. Vegetative production (shoot size, leaf growth) was also higher in these shoots. Aboveground/belowground biomass ratio was lower in eelgrass beds not directly influenced by oyster farms, likely related to the higher investment in belowground biomass to incorporate sedimentary nutrients

Simple Encrypted Arithmetic Library - SEAL v2.1

Achieving fully homomorphic encryption was a longstanding open problem in cryptography until it was resolved by Gentry in 2009. Soon after, several homomorphic encryption schemes were proposed. The early homomorphic encryption schemes were extremely impractical, but recently new implementations, new data encoding techniques, and a better understanding of the applications have started to change the situation. In this paper we introduce the most recent version (v2.1) of Simple Encrypted Arithmetic Library - SEAL, a homomorphic encryption library developed by Microsoft Research, and describe some of its core functionality