Threshold MAYO in Go (Passively secure)

Andreas Skriver Nielsen, Markus Valdemar Grønkjær Jensen, and Hans-Christian Kjeldsen

Overview

This project provides a threshold implementation of the MAYO digital signature scheme, following the design outlined in the threshold variant proposal. MAYO is a multivariate signature scheme based on the Oil and Vinegar (O&V) framework, optimized for compact public keys and post-quantum security.

This threshold construction enables a set of ( n ) parties to jointly sign a message such that any subset of ( t ) or more parties can produce a valid signature, while fewer than ( t ) learn nothing about the secret key.

Key Features

• Threshold signing: Distributed key generation and signing without reconstructing the full private key.
• Post-quantum security: Inherits the security properties of MAYO under multivariate assumptions.
• Modular implementation: Built in Go for portability and clarity.
• Benchmarking support: Evaluate performance for various ( n ), ( t ), and system sizes.

Installation

Ensure you have Go installed: Download Go Clone the repository:

$ git clone https://github.com/AU-HC/mayo-threshold-go
$ cd mayo-threshold-go

Usage

The implementation is currently a command-line tool. To run key generation, threshold signing, and verification, for 5 parties with a threshold of 3 execute:

go run -tags=mayo1 main.go -n=5 -t=3

Note that the following flags can be set:

• -tags (string): The level of MAYO.
• -n (int): Total number of parties participating in the threshold signature scheme.
• -t (int): Threshold number of parties required to generate a valid signature.
• -b (int): Optional. Number of benchmark iterations to run. This flag will ignore the n and t flags.

Remarks

• This is a prototype implementation of the threshold construction based on the referenced paper.
• The current focus is correctness and clarity, not optimization.
• For a version that includes active security protections, see the active-security branch.