SPHINCS
SPHINCS is an early form of the hash-based stateless signature scheme submitted by Bernstein, using Merkle trees and one-time signatures.
Purpose
Provides hash-based quantum-resistant signatures; the predecessor of SPHINCS+, with security depending only on the underlying hash.
Mechanism
A multi-layer Merkle tree, each layer using WOTS+ one-time signatures; leaves are roots of the lower-layer tree, and the top-layer root is the public key. A signature contains authentication paths and one-time signatures at each layer.
Use cases
- Quantum-resistant signatures
- Hash-based signatures
- SPHINCS+ predecessor