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| Science & Technology |
| NIST Asks Public to Help Future-Proof Electronic Information |
| 2017-01-19 |
| The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is officially asking the public for help heading off a looming threat to information security: quantum computers, which could potentially break the encryption codes used to protect privacy in digital systems. NIST is requesting methods and strategies from the world’s cryptographers, with the deadline less than a year away. The Call for Proposals for Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization (link is external), announced today in the Federal Register, is NIST’s first formal step toward countering the danger that quantum computers pose to the security of digital information. Though practical quantum computers have yet to be built, their design—which would draw upon very different scientific concepts than conventional computers—would enable them to break some of the cryptographic algorithms commonly used to protect electronic messages. With the public’s participation, NIST intends to spend the next few years gathering, testing and ultimately recommending new algorithms that would be less susceptible to a quantum computer’s attack. First up is the gathering stage. Cryptographers can send proposed algorithms to NIST by Nov. 30, 2017. Full details are available at nist.gov/pqcrypto, but according to NIST mathematician Dustin Moody, their main concern should be with new algorithms for public key cryptography (link is external), a commonly used method of protecting information that uses electronic keys to unlock secrets. Widely used public key cryptographic systems, which protect electronic banking data and many other kinds of information, use pairs of very large numbers to serve as the keys for decrypting the message. These numbers can be hidden by multiplying them together to produce even larger numbers that a conventional computer cannot easily factor. However, a quantum computer would be able to find the initial two numbers quickly, breaking the encryption. “We’re looking to replace three NIST cryptographic standards and guidelines that would be the most vulnerable to quantum computers,” Moody said, referring to FIPS 186-4, NIST SP 800-56A and NIST SP 800-56B. “They deal with encryption, key establishment and digital signatures, all of which use forms of public key cryptography.” |
| Posted by:Skidmark |
| #1 NIST is crowdfishing for solutions. The Chinese are reporting an operational satellite. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2017-01-19 22:23 |