Measuring the security of cryptographic systems is not a simple task. Nevertheless, there is an increasing need for a cryptographic metric which could assist in decision making when choosing between various candidates. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has launched a process to standardize quantum-resistance public key encryption, key encapsulation and digital signature algorithms. This is NIST’s response to the threat posed by quantum computers against classical public key cryptography. In this paper, we apply a metric taxonomy, produced by earlier studies, to two NIST third round finalist digital signature algorithms Dilithium and Falcon in order to asses the effectiveness and extensiveness of the metric. Although, our results show that clear differences can be found with used metrics, we propose some improvements to them to allow more comprehensive analysis.

Our digital lives rely on modern cryptography that is based on complicated mathematics average human users cannot follow. Previous attempts at adding the human user into the cryptographic loop include things like Human Authenticated Key Exchange and visualizable cryptography. This paper presents our proof-of-concept implementation of these ideas as a system called EEVEHAC. It utilizes human capabilities to achieve an end-to-end encrypted channel between a user and a server that is authenticated with human senses and can be used through untrusted environments. The security of this complete system is analyzed. We find that the combination of the two different systems into EEVEHAC on a theoretical level retains the security of the individual systems. We also identify the weaknesses of this implementation and discuss options for overcoming them.