Douglas Stebila

Brief on Bill C-22 Lawful Access Act

November 2, 2026 at 11:20AM Research

Bill C-22, Lawful Access Act, 2026, is currently before the Canadian Senate, under consideration by the Standing Senate Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs.

With my University of Waterloo colleague, Ian Goldberg, and Georgia Tech colleagues Michael Specter and Peter Swire, we have submitted a brief to the Senate committee.

Statement Submitted to the Standing Senate Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans A;airs, Senate of Canada Explaining Concerns About Bill C-22 Based on Experience with Prior Encryption Proposals and Lawful Access Regimes Elsewhere

The Globe and Mail reported on our letter:

Globe and Mail article

Security analysis of Apple's iMessage PQ3 protocol

February 21, 2024 at 09:00AM Research

Today Apple announced its new iMessage PQ3 protocol, which is an update to the cryptographic protocol used in iMessage that adds post-quantum cryptography. I worked with Apple over the past few months to analyze the protocol and show that it meets the security goals, and have written a paper describing my findings. I’m glad to see the adoption of post-quantum cryptography protocols continuing.

Comparison of quantum-secure cryptography in messaging apps (Credit: Apple)

Launch of the Linux Foundation's Post-Quantum Cryptography Alliance

February 6, 2024 at 09:00AM Research

Today is the launch of the Post-Quantum Cryptography Alliance, a new open-source software foundation within the Linux Foundation. The PQCA will be the new home of the Open Quantum Safe project.

Michele Mosca and I founded the OQS project about a decade ago as a research project, to share code and enable experiments using post-quantum algorithms in applications like OpenSSL. People seemed interested in the code especially because it enabled experimental use of post-quantum in applications that relied on OpenSSL. The initiative was jump-started in 2016 with the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization project, when suddenly there were lots of algorithms to evaluate. Since then interest in the project has grown and many people and organizations have helped build the project into a highly useful tool for prototyping, experimentation, and research. With the move into the Linux Foundation and the support of the PQCA, our goal is to have a permanent home for the OQS project and enable it to mature into a reliable open-source cryptography library that can support the transition to post-quantum cryptography, and also continue to enable research as PQ algorithms and capabilities evolve.

Many people and organizations have supported OQS over the years.

Current and past members of our core team: Norm Ashley, Michael Baentsch, Thomas Bailleux, Eric Crockett, Vlad Gheorghiu, Jason Goertzen, Basil Hess, Shravan Mishra, Michele Mosca, Christian Paquin, John Schanck, Pravek Sharma, Goutam Tamvada, Thom Wiggers, and Spencer Wilson.

Additional contributors, supporters, and champions: Mark Albert, Nicholas Allan, Matthew Campagna, Ben Davies, Nir Drucker, Ted Eaton, Karen Easterbrook, Linux Färnstrand, Jannis Fengler, Andrew Fregly, Shay Gueron, Torben Hansen, Alex Harrison, Brian Jarvis, Jeff Johnson, Burt Kaliski Jr., Kevin Kane, Matthias Kannwischer, Brian LaMacchia, Tancrède Lepoint, Yong Jian Ming, Keane Moraes, Dimitris Mouris, Brian Neill, Duc Tri Nguyen, PhD, Michael Osborne, Alex Parent, Geovandro Pereira, Sebastian Ramacher, Peter Schwabe, Dimitrios Sikeridis, John Underhill, Sebastian Verschoor, John F. Weston; see also the full list of contributors on GitHub.

Funding support for OQS has been provided by ARC, AWS, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, Cisco, NSERC, the NGI Assure Fund, the Unitary Fund, VeriSign Inc., and the University of Waterloo.

Thanks to the team at the Linux Foundation (Hart Montgomery, Todd Benzies, Scott Nicholas, Michael Dolan) and others involved in the formation of the PQCA, including Michael Maximilien who pushed for the creation of the PQCA inside the Linux Foundation.

New York Times article on post-quantum cryptography

October 22, 2023 at 11:15AM Research

The New York Times has an article today about the need to transition to post-quantum cryptography, and the governemnt and academic efforts over the past few years. I have a small contribution to the article in the form of an image about lattice-based cryptography.

Lattice cryptography in the New York Times

Joint Statement on Contact Tracing

April 20, 2020 at 10:45AM Research

Open letter from 300+ scientists from 25+ countries laying out 4 principles for open, transparent and private-by-design COVID-19 contact tracing systems, focusing on decentralised approaches to limit surveillance repurposing.