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Privacy-Enhancing Cryptography PEC

Threshold schemes

The upcoming NIST First Call for Multi-Party Threshold Schemes (see the initial public draft in NIST IR8214C ipd, and received public comments) will solicit public proposals of threshold schemes (multi-party protocols) for various cryptographic primitives. The NIST Workshop on Multi-Party Threshold Schemes (MPTS) 2023 will collect further feedback before the final version of the Call.

The proposed by the "NIST Threshold Call" includes exploring techniques of MPC (secure multiparty computation), ZKP (zero-knowledge proofs), FHE (fully-homomorphic encryption), and IBE/ABE (identity-based and attribute-based encryption), among other techniques of interest to the PEC project. More details about the public call can be found in the webpage of the NIST Multi-Party Threshold Cryptography (MPTC) project.

Below is a copy of Table 2 of the mentioned draft call (NIST IR8214C ipd), showcasing the subcategories of interest, within category Cat2 (for primitives not specified by NIST). The analysis of submitted schemes will include engagement by the MPTC and the PEC projects.

Subcategory: Type Example scheme Example primitive
C2.1: Signing TF Succinct & verifiable-deterministic signatures Signing
TF-QR signatures  
Signing
C2.2: PKE TF-QR public-key encryption (PKE) Decryption/encryption
C2.3: KA Low-round multi-party key-agreement (KA) Single-party primitives
C2.4: Symmetric TF blockcipher/PRP Encipher/decipher
TF key-derivation / key confirmation (KC) PRF and hash function
C2.5: Keygen Any of the above Keygen
C2.6: Advanced TF fully-homomorphic encryption (FHE) Decryption; Keygens
TF identity-based encryption (IBE), attribute-based encryption (ABE) Decryption; Keygens
C2.7: ZKPoK ZKPoK of private key ZKPoK.Generate
C2.8: Gadgets Garbled circuit (GC) GC.generate; GC.evaluate

Legend:  2KE = pair-wise key-establishment; KC = Key confirmation; KD = Key derivation; Keygen = key-generation; PRF = pseudorandom function (family); PRP = pseudorandom permutation (family); QR = quantum resistant; TF = threshold friendly; ZKPoK = Zero-knowledge proof of knowledge.

Also, there is a category Cat1 for threshold schemes for NIST specified primitives. The upcoming revision of NISTIR 8214C ipd is expected to include in subcategory C1.1 and C.1.2 some primitives of the schemes selected by the NIST-PQC project in 2022.

Contacts

Reach the PEC team at:
crypto-privacy@nist.gov

Luís T. A. N. Brandão

René Peralta - NIST

Angela Robinson - NIST

Topics

Security and Privacy: cryptography, privacy

Created January 03, 2017, Updated January 31, 2024