Subject: [Cfrg] New I-D on hash-based signatures

From: Andreas Hülsing <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2015 20:43:36 +0100

Hi,

A few of us have put some work into an 00 draft describing primitives,
protocols, and architectures of hash-based signatures. The abstract from
the draft reads:

This note describes the eXtended Merkle Signature Scheme (XMSS), a
hash-based digital signature system.  It follows existing descriptions
in scientific  literature. The note specifies the WOTS+ one-time
signature scheme, a single-tree (XMSS) and a multi-tree variant
(XMSS^MT) of XMSS.  Both variants use WOTS+ as a main building block.
XMSS provides cryptographic digital signatures without relying on the
conjectured hardness of mathematical problems. Instead, it is proven
that it only relies on the properties of cryptographic hash functions.
XMSS provides strong security guarantees and, besides some special
instantiations, is even secure when the collision resistance of the
underlying hash function is broken. It is  suitable for compact
implementations, relatively simple to implement, and naturally resists
side-channel attacks.  Unlike most other signature systems, hash-based
signatures withstand attacks using  quantum computers.

A link to the draft is here:
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-xmss-00

The draft is on the agenda of the upcoming IETF/CFRG meeting in Dallas
for discussion.

We are looking forward to hearing any feedback before, during, and after
the Dallas meeting on this work.

Andreas

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From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2015 03:39:11 +0100

> the Dallas meeting on this work.
As CFRG already accepted the topic as a possible work item, chairs are 
asking you to resubmit your draft  as 
draft-irtf-cfrg-hash-based-signatures-00.txt

Thank you,
Alexey, on behalf of chairs.