arXiv subjects

Davide De Zuane

Publications and source records attributed to Davide De Zuane.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Efficient and Quantum-safe Internet Key Exchange Protocols for Satellite Communications

This paper studies cryptographic key exchange in satellite communications, which requires specific solutions because the satellite context presents unique challenges, particularly concerning onboard resource constraints and long transmission latency. We address these challenges by considering the Internet Key Exchange (IKE) protocol, which is widely used in terrestrial networks, and studying its applicability in the satellite context. This requires addressing two main issues: i) its efficiency in terms of the resources and bandwidth required to adapt to satellite terminals, and ii) its resistance even to attackers equipped with a quantum computer, in order to resist obsolescence and defend against harvest-now-decrypt-later attacks. We study these aspects from both a design and experimental point of view, defining and assessing some protocol variants characterized by low complexity and quantum resistance. To address the need to manage the transition from classic cryptographic primitives to post-quantum ones, we also consider the possibility of using hybrid cryptographic solutions that combine them both.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2026

Near-Codewords Aware Bit Flipping Decoding of QC-MDPC Codes

Bit-Flipping (BF) decoders are a family of decoders widely employed in post-quantum cryptographic schemes based on Quasi-Cyclic Moderate-Density Parity-Check (QC-MDPC) codes, such as BIKE. BF decoders suffer from trapping sets, corresponding to low-weight error patterns that likely lead to decoding failures. For QC-MDPC codes, the most relevant family of trapping sets is that of near-codewords, which are error patterns associated to low-weight syndromes. Indeed, recent works show that error patterns having a large overlap with near-codewords are the main culprits for decoding failures at very low Decoding Failure Rate (DFR) values. In this paper, we show that any BF decoder can be tweaked and made somehow aware of near-codewords, which means being able to recognize, and recover from, bad configurations due to near-codewords. We show that this modification results in minimal computational overhead. Through intensive numerical simulations, we evaluate the effectiveness of this approach on several BF decoders, considering both toy code parameters and BIKE parameters for NIST security category 1. Our results show drastic reductions in the DFR. We also find that, with this modification, a recently proposed BF variant called BF-Max outperforms the two decoders used by BIKE within the NIST competition.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2026

Implementation and transition to post-quantum cryptography of the Minimal IKE protocol

This paper concerns the Minimal Internet Key Exchange (IKE) protocol, which has received little attention to date, despite its potential to make the best-known IKE protocol sufficiently lightweight to be also applied in contexts where it is currently prohibitive, due to its large footprint. First, we introduce and describe Colibri, an efficient, open-source implementation of the Minimal IKE protocol, which allows us to quantitatively assess its real advantages in terms of lightness. Then we introduce a post-quantum variant of the Minimal IKE protocol, which is essential to make it contemporary, and assess it through Colibri. We demonstrate that the protocol performance remains excellent even in such a more challenging context, making it suitable for deploying pervasive and quantum-resistant virtual private networks.

cs.CR↗