NIST Projects on Threshold and Privacy-Enhancing Crypto: Opportunities for Post-Quantum Cryptography

Abstract. The NIST Threshold Call (Report 8214C) sets a process to collect a body of reference material on threshold schemes for cryptographic primitives, where a secret key is split (secret-shared) across multiple parties. This process will induce a public analysis (aimed to start in 2025) of various building blocks and constructions of secure multiparty computation (MPC). The wide scope of the Threshold Call also aims at exploring zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP), fully-homomorphic encryption (FHE), and other techniques not currently standardized by NIST. Additionally, the privacy-enhancing cryptography (PEC) project at NIST is interested in further techniques, such as private-set intersection (PSI), and identity- and attribute-based encryption (IBE/ABE). This talk will overview the PEC and Threshold Crypto projects, and how their advanced cryptography scope includes emerging post-quantum cryptography (PQC). Even the analysis of non-PQC primitives helps set a reference for desirable properties that would be useful to explore in a PQC setting. The talk also sets the stage for a few questions toward the audience. The attendees are encouraged to informally share their suggestions, insights, and other comments.