ZP-1

Experimental post-quantum signed encryption envelope.

ZP-1 is a Rust reference implementation of a signed public-key encryption object format. It uses a KEM/KDF/AEAD envelope with recipient stanzas, canonical binary encoding, a signed public manifest, key commitment, and a Merkle root over authenticated chunks.

This crate is experimental, unaudited, and not production-ready. Do not use it for production secrets.

Current Status

ZP-1 currently has an experimental Rust reference implementation. The default crate does not include production PQC providers. The deterministic provider is tests-only and not cryptographic. Current validation covers protocol mechanics, canonical parsing, tamper detection, and limit checks. External cryptographic review has not occurred.

Validation Status

• positive deterministic vector exists
• negative corpus exists
• wire stability tests exist
• CI exists
• fuzzing scaffold exists
• fuzz smoke runner exists
• exhaustive mutation tests exist
• audit packet docs exist
• supply-chain policy docs exist
• production providers remain absent
• external review remains absent

Phase 4 Validation Status

Phase 4 adds a manual fuzz smoke runner, a manual fuzz smoke workflow, exhaustive mutation tests over the frozen positive object, a supply-chain policy, optional supply-chain workflow, and audit packet documentation.

Validation evidence is tracked in VALIDATION.md.

The project remains experimental and unaudited. Production PQC providers are still absent and external review has not occurred.

Primitive Suite

ZP-1 Core targets:

• ML-KEM-1024 for recipient encapsulation
• ML-DSA-87 for signer authentication
• SHA-384 for hashing
• HMAC-SHA384 extract/expand KDF
• AES-256-GCM-SIV for AEAD
• canonical binary encoding
• domain-separated SHA-384 Merkle tree

ZP-1 Archive is defined as Core plus an SLH-DSA level-5 archival co-signature. In v0.1, Archive structures are defined but archive operation is not implemented without a real provider.

Security Goals

ZP-1 Core targets recipient confidentiality, ciphertext integrity, signer authenticity, AAD binding, recipient-key binding, signer-key binding, chunk order and length integrity, key commitment, downgrade resistance, and splice resistance under the assumptions in SPEC.md.

This is a design target, not a formal proof artifact.

Non-Goals

• Production-readiness without independent review
• Implementing ML-KEM, ML-DSA, SLH-DSA, AES, SHA-384, or HMAC in this crate
• Providing a default native post-quantum provider
• Streaming plaintext release before full verification
• JSON, CBOR, serde, bincode, postcard, or map-based wire encoding

Test-Only Example

The InsecureTestProvider is NOT CRYPTOGRAPHICALLY SECURE. TESTS ONLY. It exists to exercise protocol mechanics when no post-quantum provider is installed.

use zp1::open::{open, OpenOptions};
use zp1::provider::test_utils::InsecureTestProvider;
use zp1::seal::{seal, SealOptions};

let mut provider = InsecureTestProvider::new(b"readme example");
let (recipient_pk, recipient_sk) = provider.generate_kem_keypair(b"recipient");
let (signer_pk, signer_sk) = provider.generate_signature_keypair(b"signer");

let aad = b"artifact metadata";
let plaintext = b"sealed contents";

let object = seal(
    &mut provider,
    &[recipient_pk],
    &signer_sk,
    &signer_pk,
    aad,
    plaintext,
    SealOptions::default(),
)?;

let opened = open(
    &mut provider,
    &recipient_sk,
    &signer_pk,
    aad,
    &object,
    OpenOptions::default(),
)?;

assert_eq!(opened, plaintext);
# Ok::<(), zp1::Zp1Error>(())

Production use requires a real provider for ML-KEM-1024 and ML-DSA-87. The default build does not expose fake cryptography.

Build and Test

cargo fmt --check
cargo test
cargo test --features test-utils
cargo test --no-default-features
cargo clippy --all-targets --features test-utils -- -D warnings
cargo doc --no-deps

Optional fuzz and supply-chain checks:

cargo install cargo-fuzz
ZP1_FUZZ_SECONDS=30 ./scripts/run-fuzz-smoke.sh
cargo install cargo-deny
cargo deny check
cargo install cargo-audit
cargo audit