Ironwood Meta Key Agreement and Authentication Protocol

Number theoretic public key solutions are subject to various quantum attacks making them less attractive for longer term use. Certain group theoretic constructs show promise in providing quantum-resistant cryptographic primitives. We introduce a new protocol called a Meta Key Agreement and Authentication Protocol (MKAAP) that has some characteristics of a public key solution and some of a shared-key solution. Then we describe the Ironwood MKAAP, analyze its security, and show how it resists quantum attacks. We also show Ironwood implemented on several IoT devices, measure its performance, and show how it performs better than existing key agreement schemes.