Resource
Reading list
What I read to write this, and which parts of it were worth the time.
- [1]standard
FIPS 203: Module-Lattice-Based Key-Encapsulation Mechanism Standard
The ML-KEM standard itself. Dry, but it is the source for every parameter size quoted in the chart above — Table 2 has the key and ciphertext lengths. Read §1 for the framing and skip to the tables unless you want the reference implementation.
- [2]standard
FIPS 204: Module-Lattice-Based Digital Signature Standard
The signature counterpart, ML-DSA. Worth opening alongside FIPS 205 to see how differently two post-quantum signature schemes can be shaped — one lattice, one hash-based, with an order of magnitude between their signature sizes.
- [3]standard
FIPS 205: Stateless Hash-Based Digital Signature Standard
SLH-DSA, the conservative option: it assumes almost nothing beyond a decent hash function, and pays for that assumption with a signature around seven kilobytes. The one to reach for when you want to be sure rather than fast.
- [5]paper
Post-quantum cryptography
The best short survey of the field before standardisation settled it. Written seven years before FIPS 203, so it is a good record of which bets were live and why lattices won.
- [4]paper
Algorithms for Quantum Computation: Discrete Logarithms and Factoring
The paper that created the deadline. Short, and more readable than its reputation suggests — the period-finding argument is the whole idea, and it fits on a couple of pages.
Links go to the publisher or a DOI rather than a mirror, so they keep resolving after this page stops being maintained.