Energy Consumption Evaluation of Post-Quantum TLS 1.3 for Resource-Constrained Embedded Devices

Post-Quantum cryptography (PQC), in the past few years, constitutes the main driving force of the quantum resistance transition for security primitives, protocols and tools. TLS is one of the widely used security protocols that needs to be made quantum safe. However, PQC algorithms integration into TLS introduce various implementation overheads compared to traditional TLS that in battery powered embedded devices with constrained resources, cannot be overlooked. While there exist several works, evaluating the PQ TLS execution time overhead in embedded systems there are only a few that explore the PQ TLS energy consumption cost. In this paper, a thorough power/energy consumption evaluation and analysis of PQ TLS 1.3 on embedded systems has been made. A WolfSSL PQ TLS 1.3 custom implementation is used that integrates all the NIST PQC algorithms selected for standardisation as well as 2 out of 3 of those evaluated in NIST Round 4. Also 1 out of 2 of the BSI recommendations have been included. The PQ TLS 1.3 with the various PQC algorithms is deployed in a STM Nucleo evaluation board under a mutual and a unilateral client-server authentication scenario. The power and energy consumption collected results are analyzed in detail. The performed comparisons and overall analysis provide very interesting results indicating that the choice of the PQC algorithms in TLS 1.3 to be deployed on an embedded system may be very different depending on the device use as an authenticated or not authenticated, client or server. Also, the results indicate that in some cases, PQ TLS 1.3 implementations can be equally or more energy consumption efficient compared to traditional TLS 1.3

Performance Evaluation of Post-Quantum TLS 1.3 on Resource-Constrained Embedded Systems

Transport Layer Security (TLS) constitutes one of the most widely used protocols for securing Internet communications and has also found broad acceptance in the Internet of Things (IoT) domain. As we progress toward a security environment resistant to quantum computer attacks, TLS needs to be transformed to support post-quantum cryptography. However, post-quantum TLS is still not standardised, and its overall performance, especially in resource-constrained, IoT-capable, embedded devices, is not well understood. In this paper, we showcase how TLS 1.3 can be transformed into quantum-safe by modifying the TLS 1.3 architecture in order to accommodate the latest Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) algorithms from NIST PQC process. Furthermore, we evaluate the execution time, memory, and bandwidth requirements of this proposed post-quantum variant of TLS 1.3 (PQ TLS 1.3). This is facilitated by integrating the pqm4 and PQClean library implementations of almost all PQC algorithms selected for standardisation by the NIST PQC process, as well as the alternatives to be evaluated in a new round (Round 4). The proposed solution and evaluation focuses on the lower end of resource-constrained embedded devices. Thus, the evaluation is performed on the ARM Cortex-M4 embedded platform NUCLEO-F439ZI that provides $180$ MHz clock rate, $2$ MB Flash Memory, and $256$ KB SRAM. To the authors\u27 knowledge, this is the first systematic, thorough, and complete timing, memory usage, and network traffic evaluation of PQ TLS 1.3 for all the NIST PQC process selections and upcoming candidate algorithms, that explicitly targets resource-constrained embedded systems

Post-Arab Spring: The Arab World Between the Dilemma of the Nation-State and the Rise of Identity Conflicts

The Arab world is one of the most volatile regions in the world suffering from identity conflicts. These conflicts, which revolve around religious, sectarian, ethnic, and tribal issues, represent the other side of the crisis of nation-state building in the Arab world in the postindependence era. Although identity conflicts are not new to the region, they have intensified after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the revolutions of the so-called Arab Spring. These two events revealed the deep crisis of the nation-state, thereby highlighting the failure of the postindependence ruling elites to establish nation states that can maintain a position of legitimacy and effectiveness. Being both legitimate and effective enables a state to include religious, sectarian, ethnic, and tribal pluralism within the framework of its national identity, based on the foundations and principles of citizenship, rule of law, respect for human rights, minority rights, and social justice.Additionally, identity conflicts are linked to two other factors that escalated after the US invasion of Iraq and the events of the “Arab spring.” First, was the increased politicization of religious, sectarian, and tribal affiliations, which was used to serve political ends, either by ruling regimes, political parties, or non-state actors. Second, is the current expansion of the political polarization between the forces of political Islam which rose rapidly after the “Arab spring” on one hand and the liberal, leftist, and national civil forces on the other hand. This polarization reflects the deep gap between the advocates of the “religious state” and the advocates of the “civil state.” The purpose of this chapter is to analyze and interpret the dimensions of the relationship between the deep crisis of the nation–state and identity conflicts in the post-Arab spring era

Mortality after surgery in Europe: a 7 day cohort study

Background: Clinical outcomes after major surgery are poorly described at the national level. Evidence of heterogeneity between hospitals and health-care systems suggests potential to improve care for patients but this potential remains unconfirmed. The European Surgical Outcomes Study was an international study designed to assess outcomes after non-cardiac surgery in Europe.Methods: We did this 7 day cohort study between April 4 and April 11, 2011. We collected data describing consecutive patients aged 16 years and older undergoing inpatient non-cardiac surgery in 498 hospitals across 28 European nations. Patients were followed up for a maximum of 60 days. The primary endpoint was in-hospital mortality. Secondary outcome measures were duration of hospital stay and admission to critical care. We used χ² and Fisher’s exact tests to compare categorical variables and the t test or the Mann-Whitney U test to compare continuous variables. Significance was set at p<0·05. We constructed multilevel logistic regression models to adjust for the differences in mortality rates between countries.Findings: We included 46 539 patients, of whom 1855 (4%) died before hospital discharge. 3599 (8%) patients were admitted to critical care after surgery with a median length of stay of 1·2 days (IQR 0·9–3·6). 1358 (73%) patients who died were not admitted to critical care at any stage after surgery. Crude mortality rates varied widely between countries (from 1·2% [95% CI 0·0–3·0] for Iceland to 21·5% [16·9–26·2] for Latvia). After adjustment for confounding variables, important differences remained between countries when compared with the UK, the country with the largest dataset (OR range from 0·44 [95% CI 0·19 1·05; p=0·06] for Finland to 6·92 [2·37–20·27; p=0·0004] for Poland).Interpretation: The mortality rate for patients undergoing inpatient non-cardiac surgery was higher than anticipated. Variations in mortality between countries suggest the need for national and international strategies to improve care for this group of patients.Funding: European Society of Intensive Care Medicine, European Society of Anaesthesiology