open-quantum-safe
Decide whether or not to continue supporting BIKE
The NIST selection process for KEMs has concluded with HQC being chosen over BIKE and Classic McEliece. As far as I'm aware, BIKE does not have the same level of non-NIST interest as Classic McEliece.
This issue is to ascertain
- whether or not there is interest in continued support for BIKE in liboqs and
- whether or not the BIKE implementation that we currently use will continue to be maintained.
Looping in @brian-jarvis-aws as the CODEOWNER for the BIKE files in liboqs.
As per in-person discussion with @dstebila and @praveksharma, Douglas will ask colleagues from AWS about the future of BIKE at conference(s) this month. If it is to be deprecated, it would be nice to include a notice to this effect in the 0.13.0 release notes.
We will not be making a deprecation announcement for BIKE in the upcoming 0.13.0 release. We'll revisit this in a future release cycle.
@dstebila Can I safely assume that no answer means no future plans by the BIKE team?
As this issue is tagged for the 0.16.0 release, can I suggest we close (in on) this? @brian-jarvis-aws (knowing you're active on GH :) Please speak up if you'd object OQS dropping BIKE for good.
Are we aware of anyone using BIKE via liboqs?
No objection from me, but I’m also not as connected to the AWS-LC goings on these days. @dkostic ?
I had an email exchange with Rafael Misoczki and Carlos Aguilar Melchor on the BIKE team about this over the past few weeks. The BIKE team still discussing whether to propose standardization to other bodies, in particular places where an IND-CPA KEM may be desirable. They have said "I wish we could still see BIKE in LibOQS (and other libs) for at least one more year before we have better clarity on whether BIKE will find its way to gain practical adoption". They are open to helping maintain it if need be (and time permitting).