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Blogging

How Blogging Has Changed For The Better In The Past Decade

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

How Blogging Has Changed For The Better In The Past Decade

Blogging has definitely come a long way since its proliferation a few decades ago.

Before Snapchat, Facebook and other online communication networks, there were blogs. Let’s take a journey to a timeless content platform that’s still as relevant as it was when it first appeared on the world wide web.

The First Blog

In 1994, an individual named Justin Hall created the very first blog.

The site was called Links.net, and it centered around links and personal dispatches. Soon, everyone wanted to have a “weblog” of their own so they could share their interests, thoughts and lives to their online friends.

From Weblog to Blog

Programmer Peter Merolz then shortened it to “blog”, and the name stuck. Then in 2002, the medium shifted from mere words to videos. The same year saw an astounding rise of the medium and the launching of Google Adsense, a monetization platform that served relevant ads within the blogger’s website.

The rise of communities centered around parenting continued, and spilled onto the YouTube platform in 2005. Media companies started moving their content to the internet in the form of opinion posts, expert advice and articles that gathered aggregate articles. People started going online just to read, watch and comment on these posts.

Microblogs

Microblogging soon followed after the rise of social media sites Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Curating feeds, tweets and posting videos soon became the norm. Blogging didn’t die out, but rather served a different, more specialized need.

Professional Success

Successful bloggers like Sourajit Saha filled in a niche that centered around the needs of their audience. Readers benefit from informative content such as comparison guides, ultimate buyer’s list, product reviews, recipe collection, tech and gadgets.

Businesses saw the potential and started hiring digital marketers and SEO companies to do their bidding. Bloggers soon experienced fulfilling careers going their own path or being hired by multinational companies.

Following the trend, we can safely say that blogging has indeed a bright future!

[“source=ilounge”]

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Internet

Internet users in India to rise by 40%, smartphones to double by 2023: McKinsey

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Untitled-9NEW DELHI: With data costs falling by 95 per cent since 2013, India will see internetusers rise by about 40 per cent and number of smartphones to double by 2023, McKinsey said in a report.

It also expects core digital sectors to jump two-fold to USD 355-435 billion by 2025.

The report ‘Digital India – Technology to Transform a Connection Nation’ by McKinsey Global Institute said the country is one of the largest and fastest-growing markets for digital consumers, with 560 million internet subscribers in 2018, second only to China.

Indian mobile data users consume 8.3 gigabits (GB) of data each month on average, compared with 5.5 GB for mobile users in China and 8-8.5 GB in advanced digital economy of South Korea. Indians have 1.2 billion mobile phone subscriptions and downloaded more apps — 12.3 billion in 2018 — than residents of any other country except China.

“Our analysis of 17 mature and emerging economies finds India is digitising faster than any other country in the study, save Indonesia — and there is plenty of room to grow: just over 40 per cent of the populace has an internet subscription,” it said.

While a government push has helped digitise the economy, private sector firms such as Reliance Jio has helped bring down data costs by more than 95 per cent since 2013, it said, adding the cost of one gigabyte fell from 9.8 per cent of per capita monthly GDP in 2013 (roughly USD 12.45) to 0.37 per cent in 2017 (the equivalent of a few cents).

“Private-sector innovation has helped bring internet-enabled services to millions of consumers and made online usage more accessible. For example, Reliance Jio’s strategy of bundling virtually free smartphones with subscriptions to its mobile service has spurred innovation and competitive pricing across the sector,” the report said.

As a result, monthly mobile data consumption per user is growing at 152 per cent annually — more than twice the rates in the United States and China. Average fixed-line download speed quadrupled between 2014 and 2017.

“India will increase the number of internet users by about 40 per cent to between 750 million and 800 million and double the number of smartphones to between 650 million and 700 million by 2023,” it said, adding the potential for India’s internet subscriber base could reach 835 million by 2023.

McKinsey said India’s internet user base has grown rapidly in recent years, propelled by the decreasing cost and increasing availability of smartphones and high-speed connectivity, and is now one of the largest in the world.

The average Indian social media user spends 17 hours on the platforms each week, more than social media users in China and the United States.

The share of Indian adults with at least one digital financial account has more than doubled since 2011, to 80 per cent, thanks in large part to the more than 332 million people who opened mobile phone–based accounts under the government’s Jan-Dhan Yojana – a mass financial-inclusion programme.

“By many measures, India is on its way to becoming a digitally advanced nation,” McKinsey said. “Just over 40 per cent of the populace has an internet subscription, but India is already home to one of the world’s largest and most rapidly growing bases of digital consumers. It is digitising activities at a faster pace than many mature and emerging economies.”

India’s core digital sectors, comprising of IT-BPM, digital communication services and electronics manufacturing, accounted for about USD 170 billion — or 7 per cent — of GDP in 2017–18.
“We estimate that these sectors could grow significantly faster than GDP, and their value-added contribution could range from USD 205 billion to USD 250 billion for IT-BPM, USD 100 billion to USD 130 billion for electronics manufacturing, and USD 50 billion to USD 55 billion for digital communication services, totalling between USD 355 billion and USD 435 billion and accounting for 8 to 10 per cent of India’s GDP in 2025,” it said.

It said India is on a fast track to adopt key digital attributes, and the number of smartphones and internet subscriptions could continue to increase rapidly in the next five years.

[“source=economictimes.indiatimes”]

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Education

Incorporating missing digital elements in formal education in India

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

education in India

A very essential part of the skills that are missing in Indian education system are digital skills. In the digital world that we live in, most of the everyday tasks are done online or on a computer. The world is an extremely data driven world, writes Siddarth Bharwani, Vice President – Brand & Marketing, Jetking.

The Indian Economy is one the fastest growing economies in the world. With an expected growth rate of 7.3% in 2019-2020, experts believe that India will soon become the third largest economy in the world after US & China. However, the ground reality of this growth rate is quite different. If we look at the employment scenario in the country, we realise that India is not doing very well. The unemployment rate in the country is extremely disproportionate to the growth rate the country is witnessing. A closer look at the job market in the country will reveal that this paradox is due to a simple but major reason: the disconnect between formal education in India and the expectations of recruiters.

To make sense of that data and to get maximum utilisation of the plethora of opportunities that a business is getting these days, it is important to harness students with ways to make use of them to make them more employable. Let’s enumerate the 3 most essential skills that need to be an integral part of the curriculum today.

Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is an extremely influential aspect of marketing today. Students that have an understanding of SEMand know how to capitalise on it will be seen as a great asset for an organization to upgrade their online search visibility. Companies spend hours updating their website and their content to make sure that they can effectively capture a larger audience. While most companies train their employees on SEO & SEM, it is a great advantage for students to have a working knowledge of them while applying for jobs.

Data Analytics

Data has become the hot word in every organisation’s dictionary. With the digitised world, there is an excess of data available which is extremely difficult to sift through and make sense of. Data Analytics is the study of various analytic tools and processes through which you can derive relevant insights and information through the refinement of raw data. Students need to be equipped with at least a basic knowledge of data analytics so that they know how to read and understand large chunks of it in a faster and more efficient manner. Companies prefer being backed by data instead of just going by trends which is why it is an important function to include into the formal education system.

Social Media Analytics

Social Media has taken the world by storm. Brands across the globe spend a lot of manpower and budget on creating efficient social media strategies. It is constantly changing and coming up with new ways for companies to stay relevant to its customers. The fact that people now spend over 50% of their time online just goes to show how important it is to include something as seemingly simple as social media into formal education system in India.

Apart from enhancing digital capabilities, it is also important to imbibe in student certain other life skills to ensure employability. Most of the education imparted is in theoretical with little or no exposure to the practical implications of the theories learnt. Recruiters often find it hard to hire people due to the lack of an understanding of the outside world and how the industry works. Soft skills like flexibility, leadership, teamwork, etc. is missing in the education system. These skills are acquired from practical exposure and it is important to allow students to experience and learn them while they are a part of the system. Recruiters look for candidates who know how to think outside the box and are able to think on their feet. The notion that these traits are something that people are born with is a myth. With practice and learning innovative thinking methods, it is possible to learn to be a critical thinker and an all-round performer.

The key to bridge this gap is through digitisation of the education system and bringing in innovative teaching pedagogy into the curriculum. E-learning has gained great traction in recent times in the education industry. The rampant increase in internet connectivity and data consumption has led to e-learning a spot in the centre stage of the education industry. Apart from providing access to education from anywhere, e-learning also allows professors to individually attend to all students giving them a better and more effective way of bridging the gap in the education system. Additionally, the role of teachers needs to change to create the link between the missing elements of the system. They need to be facilitators and not the leaders in a classroom. Attention should shift from teachers talking to students engaging and participating to motivate them to grasp more information.

To conclude, India needs to be more aware of the skill-gap and find ways to address it. Government bodies like National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) are created to deal with it but the awareness of this problem still exists. It is the duty of more educational institutes to create opportunities for its students to learn these important skills and make them job-ready. While corporates are making their own effort in skill-training by associating with various institutes to create specialised courses to suit their needs, educational institutes need to integrate these skills into the values of their organisation and curriculums. Only then will the country truly see the growth that it boasts of.

[“source=digitallearning.eletsonline.”]

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News Update

Share market update: Auto shares in the green; Motherson Sumi up 1%

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

auto bccl

NEW DELHI: Auto shares were trading in the green in Tuesday’s morning session.

Shares of Motherson SumiNSE 0.35 % Systems (up 2.18 per cent), Exide Industries (up 1.55 per cent), Tata Motors (up 0.88 per cent) and Bharat Forge (up 0.82 per cent) were the top gainers in the index.

Maruti Suzuki India (up 0.75 per cent), Tata Motors (DVR) (up 0.53 per cent), TVS Motor Company (up 0.51 per cent) and MRFNSE 0.32 % (up 0.50 per cent) too were trading with gains.

The Nifty Auto index was trading 0.41 per cent up at 8272.60 around 09:50 am.

Benchmark NSE Nifty50 index was up 44.60 points at 11,398.85 while the BSE Sensex was up 144.53 points at 37,953.44.

Among the 50 stocks in the Nifty index, 36 were trading in the green, while 13 were in the red.

Shares of DLF, Indian Oil Corp, BHEL, ONGC, NTPC, Bank of Baroda, Ashok Leyland, YES Bank, SBI, ICICI Bank, SAIL, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company, HPCL, Motherson Sumi and Coal India were among the most traded securities on the NSE

[“source=economictimes.indiatimes.”]

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Internet

T-Mobile opens a home internet trial in rural and underserved areas

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

T-Mobile is rolling out home internet service with an invitation-only trial starting today. It hopes to connect 50,000 homes in rural and underserved areas through the LTE program this year.

The pilot, which is for existing customers, will reach areas where T-Mobile expects to offer connection speeds of around 50 Mbps. The $50/month service has no data caps, annual contracts, equipment costs or hidden fees. Those who sign up will receive a router T-Mobile says is easy to set up, and they’ll have support from a customer service team.

The pilot is a precursor to T-Mobile’s grander home internet plans. If the merger with Sprint is approved, it aims to switch on 5G home internet service in more than half of US zip codes by 2024, offering download speeds of more than 100 Mbps. The planned network will be able to support home internet in 9.5 million households by that time — those goals could sweeten the merger for the FCC, which is seeking to close the broadband gap.

Almost half of US residents have “no competitive choice” for home broadband at speeds of 100 Mbps, T-Mobile says. The rural broadbandproblem has also been well documented, with millions of Americansunable to access high-speed internet. Meanwhile, some T-Mobile rivals are also moving into the home internet market. Verizon (owner of Engadget’s parent company, Verizon Media) is taking a different strategy, having opened up 5G service in select parts of some cities.

[“source=engadget”]

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Online Marketing

Online marketing solutions provider, Benddit, raises $250,000 in seed capital

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

GettyImages-858499326NEW DELHI: Sales and marketing solutions platform, Benddit has raised $250,000 in seed capital from industry leaders. Benddit will use this round of funding to accelerate product development, expand its team of experts, on board service providers and bolster its marketing initiatives.

The platform, founded by Vani Gupta, Venkatesh Rangachari, and Vipul Gupta, allows companies and startups to find the best fit solution provider for their specific marketing and sales needs, according to a release. The co-founders have worked across companies including PepsiCo, Airtel, Practo, and Accenture.

Companies of all sizes need outsourced expertise at the right price, which are innovative and flexible, and comes with high service standards. Benddit offers ‘expert intelligence’ enhanced by technology to match client requirements to service providers. Its algorithm matches the requirements of its clients seeking specific solutions in sales and marketing to the specialised service providers on the basis of parameters including complexity, stage, relevance, cost, etc.

The algorithm scans through Benddit’s database of service providers and suggests the best fit names of service providers with ‘scores’ to reflect the degree of the ‘match’ between the two and then facilitates a call between the company and the selected provider, the release elaborated.

“Every business today is looking at agile, creative service providers across a spectrum of services where they are assured of quality and timely service. Our blended model using technology and expert to support and hand hold both the clients and service provider alike ensures that we deliver impactful results,” says Vani Gupta.

[“source=economictimes.indiatimes”]

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Blogging

5 Irrefutable Reasons Why All European Startups Should Invest in Blogging

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

5 Irrefutable Reasons Why All European Startups Should Invest in Blogging

Content sits upon the throne as the undisputed monarch of modern marketing. There are few more trustworthy avenues for generating exposure and building a customer base than through the process of setting up a digital space for a dedicated blog or quality content.

The potential benefits of investing in blogging and content are no more pronounced than with European startups, where the prospect of placing engaging material under the noses of audiences across the EU can drive interest from areas of the continent and beyond that would’ve otherwise remained oblivious to your endeavor.

But how necessary is the act of investing in a blog? And how can it help in growing a startup into a company with a multinational following? Here are five irrefutable reasons why all European startups should consider creating quality content.

1. Strategic expansion

The best way to build traffic and leads for your website hinges on its ability to feature highly enough in the results pages of Google. However, given that there’s little room for yourself and all like-minded endeavors to attain a position of prominence at the top of search engine results pages, it’s down to you to make your website visible for your prospective audience.

A direct search for your company name should be an easy way of appearing on the first page of Google. But unfortunately, people don’t generally look for company names on search engines — they look for answers to problems.

The names of startups won’t be near the first page for queries based on their products, so it’s vital that you work on gaining exposure.

Here, content is key. If you’re creating quality content that’s filled with the right blend of keywords that are likely to be included as search engine queries, you’ll be placing yourself in a strategically advantageous position in offering an answer to your audience’s questions — and in doing so, attracting them to your pages.

The key here is research. Keyword research to be more specific. As a startup, your website may not have the weight to rank for high-volume, high competition phrases. Hence, it’s vital to tap into low-hanging fruits.

To do that, tools such as Ahrefs or Moz can help.

Start by identifying high-volume yet low competition keywords.

Let’s assume you’re running an email marketing startup. Although it might be challenging to tackle keywords such as “email marketing” right off the bat, by digging deeper into research, you’ll be sure to identify some decent keywords as shown below.

Ahrefs Keyword Research

As a European startup, gaining search engine prominence through effective contenthas the potential to transform your business from a local entity into one that has a continental reach. At a time when you’re wholly dependent on raising awareness of your company and encouraging a healthy level of sales, this extra exposure could pay dividends in ensuring your expansion into a comfortable business.

2. Foreseeable futureproofing

You may or may not be aware of the term evergreen content, but it refers to the creation of content that’s structured to stand the test of time and encourage traffic to your site from search engines.

By creating a blog that engages with an audience while answering frequently asked questions  they may have regarding your industry, you’re able to guarantee a long-term flow of traffic to your pages as well as establishing yourself as a leading knowledge base on the topics that interest your customers.

To create effective evergreen content, be sure to avoid including time-specific references or focal points in your articles. To base a blog post on a news story is a great way of getting short-term traffic, but to find a recurring theme within a news piece and draw on that instead could make a big difference when it comes to winning customers a few months down the line.

Another useful way of sounding out the potential for an evergreen post is to monitor websites such as Quora and forum-based question-and-answer platforms. If you can identify relevant trending topics that are yet to be touched on by your competitors, there’s nothing stopping you from creating an engaging post that appeals directly to the users that are asking such questions online.

This tactic is arguably the most effective way of futureproofing your website and ensuring that you’ll always have a healthy stream of traffic entering your pages.

3. Opportunities for feedback

By investing in blogging and quality content, you’re creating a fresh and engaging avenue of communication between your brand and your audience. This is vital in developing a trustworthy reputation for your prospective customers.

The comments section of your company blog makes for an excellent space for you to communicate directly to customers and visitors alike. This engagement opportunity is highly valuable because everybody you’re interacting with has already displayed enough interest in your brand by visiting your pages — whereas interactions on social media may be valuable, but will likely not result in as many sales.

The level of engagement you can bring through the medium of a dedicated blog and quality content is scalable, too. Some websites offer a free giveaway of a product or service within their blog posts as a way of encouraging more comments and user interaction. Cloudways points out that this method has the potential to produce lots of valuable user-created content that you could ultimately leverage to build a stronger customer base.

4. Reputation building

Blogs have the power to become the perfect representative of your brand. Today, it’s never been easier for customers to make purchases from anywhere in Europe, so startups have a huge market in which to craft their reputation.

Although traffic may be initially slow, through the right use of keyword research and regularly published content you’ll be able to build a recurring audience for your posts who will likely trust your brand ahead of your competitors.

In fact, according to HubSpot, companies that publish more than 16 blog posts per months get 3.5 times more traffic than those businesses that publish up to four blog posts.

Given the interconnectivity that Europe enjoys today, developing a positive reputation is vital — a collection of poor reviews that are visible to people searching for your startup could severely hinder its progress. By building a blog that showcases quality content, you can ensure that prospective customers have as positive and engaging experience as possible.

5. The pied piper of subscriptions and value

There are few things more alluring to prospective customers than content. Sure, newsletters are great for building a customer base, but the problem with this approach alone is that you can never be confident that you’ve gathered the right audience. Blogging, however, ensures that your output is popular with the right people.

It’s no stretch to say that high-quality content is a draw for audiences, and the best blogs will motivate visitors toward subscriptions. By utilizing your blog to encourage users to subscribe to a mailing list, you can leverage your pages to include call-to-actions and detail-free gifts and offers to award visitors in return for their email addresses.

[“source=entrepreneur”]
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Internet

Internet users in India to reach 627 million in 2019: Report

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

TechIndia’s internet users expected to register double digit growth to reach 627 million in 2019, driven by rapid internet growth in rural areas, market research agency Kantar IMRB Wednesday said.

Internet usage in the country has exceeded half a billion people for first time, pegged at 566 million, driven by rural internet growth and usage.

In its ICUBE 2018 report that tracks digital adoption and usage trends in India, it noted that the number of internet users in India has registered an annual growth of 18 percent and is estimated at 566 million as of December 2018, a 40 percent overall internet penetration, it observed.

It projected a double digit growth for 2019 and estimates that the number of internet users will reach 627 million by the end of this year.

Of the total user base, 87 percent or 493 million Indians, are defined as regular users, having accessed internet in last 30 days. Nearly 293 million active internet users reside in urban India, while there are 200 million active users in rural India, it said.

The report found that 97 percent of users use mobile phone as one of the devices to access internet.

While internet users grew by 7 percent in urban India, reaching 315 million users in 2018, digital adoption is now being propelled by rural India, registering a 35 percent growth in internet users over the past year.

It is now estimated that there are 251 million internet users in rural India, and this is expected to reach 290 million by the end of 2019, the report said.

“Increased availability of bandwidth, cheap data plans and increased awareness driven by government programmes seem to have rapidly bridged the digital gap between urban and rural India. Consequently, the penetration in rural India has increased from 9 per cent in 2015 to 25 percent in 2018,” it added.

Bihar registered the highest growth in internet users across both urban and rural areas, registering a growth of 35 percent over last year.

The report also noted that the internet usage is more gender balanced than ever before with women comprising 42 percent of total internet users.

“It is fascinating to note that the digital revolution is now sweeping small towns and villages perhaps driven by increased accessibility at affordable data costs. The increase in the usage of digital in rural India, where more than two-thirds of active internet users are now accessing the internet daily to meet their entertainment and communication needs,” KantarIMRB managing director Media and Digital Hemant Mehta said.

Marketers have a big opportunity today where they can use digital to reach their consumers both in urban and rural India, Mehta said.

[“source=economictimes.indiatimes.”]

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Education

Delhi government facilitates expansion of educational institutions in the national capital

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Another project put forth by DTTE received a nod by EFC, which involves the construction of six building in NSIT Campus in Dwarka, which is estimated to cost Rs. 202.12 crores.

Education

Delhi govt facilitates expansion of educational facilities (Representational Image)  |  Photo Credit: Getty Images

New Delhi: The Delhi government on Friday approved proposals at a meeting of the Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) that will facilitate the expansion of educational institutions in the national capital.  The committee approved the Directorate of Training & Technical Education’s (DTTE) proposal for the construction of Smart classrooms in Netaji Subhas University of Technology (NSUT) Campus in Dwarka. The project is estimated to cost around Rs 26.79 crore.

The project was approved as the name of Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology (NSIT) was changed to Netaji Subhas University of Technology (NSUT) in 2018, leading to an increase in the number of students in the campus. The building will now be able to accommodate an additional 1500 students. Accordingly, a consultant has been appointed to prepare detailed drawings of the classrooms.

Another project put forth by DTTE received a nod by EFC, which involves the construction of six building in NSIT Campus in Dwarka, which is estimated to cost Rs. 202.12 crores.

DTTE contented that the present infrastructure is planned for 2650 students, while the total strength is 3500, therefore, to cater to the increased student strength at the campus, infrastructure is required.

For this, approval of Delhi Urban Art Commission (DUAC) has also been received, while other approvals such as Fire, Environment, forest clearance are being pursued.

Family Welfare Department (FWD) proposal for the construction of G+22+ double basement building at Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital, estimating Rs 533.91 crore was also cleared in the EFC meeting. The building will be used as Medicine, Maternity and Advanced Paediatric Centre.

At present, the total number of beds in the hospital is 2550 and another 1570 beds are proposed to be added. Statutory clearances from DUAC, Fire Department and Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) for the project has been obtained, while environment clearance is under process.

[“source=timesnownews”]

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Internet

Securing the “internet of things” in the quantum age

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

MIT researchers have developed a novel chip that can compute complex quantum-proof encryption schemes efficiently enough to protect low-power “internet of things” (IoT) devices.

MIT researchers have developed a novel cryptography circuit that can be used to protect low-power “internet of things” (IoT) devices in the coming age of quantum computing.

Quantum computers can in principle execute calculations that today are practically impossible for classical computers. Bringing quantum computers online and to market could one day enable advances in medical research, drug discovery, and other applications. But there’s a catch: If hackers also have access to quantum computers, they could potentially break through the powerful encryption schemes that currently protect data exchanged between devices.

Today’s most promising quantum-resistant encryption scheme is called “lattice-based cryptography,” which hides information in extremely complicated mathematical structures. To date, no known quantum algorithm can break through its defenses. But these schemes are way too computationally intense for IoT devices, which can only spare enough energy for simple data processing.

In a paper presented at the recent International Solid-State Circuits Conference, MIT researchers describe a novel circuit architecture and statistical optimization tricks that can be used to efficiently compute lattice-based cryptography. The 2-millimeter-squared chips the team developed are efficient enough for integration into any current IoT device.

The architecture is customizable to accommodate the multiple lattice-based schemes currently being studied in preparation for the day that quantum computers come online. “That might be a few decades from now, but figuring out if these techniques are really secure takes a long time,” says first author Utsav Banerjee, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science. “It may seem early, but earlier is always better.”

Moreover, the researchers say, the circuit is the first of its kind to meet standards for lattice-based cryptography set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce that finds and writes regulations for today’s encryption schemes.

Joining Banerjee on the paper are Anantha Chandrakasan, dean of MIT’s School of Engineering and the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Abhishek Pathak of the Indian Institute of Technology.

Efficient sampling

In the mid-1990s, MIT Professor Peter Shor developed a quantum algorithm that can essentially break through all modern cryptography schemes. Since then, NIST has been trying to find the most secure postquantum encryption schemes. This happens in phases; each phase winnows down a list of the most secure and practical schemes. Two weeks ago, the agency entered its second phase for postquantum cryptography, with lattice-based schemes making up half of its list.

In the new study, the researchers first implemented on commercial microprocessors several NIST lattice-based cryptography schemes from the agency’s first phase. This revealed two bottlenecks for efficiency and performance: generating random numbers and data storage.

Generating random numbers is the most important part of all cryptography schemes, because those numbers are used to generate secure encryption keys that can’t be predicted. That’s calculated through a two-part process called “sampling.”

Sampling first generates pseudorandom numbers from a known, finite set of values that have an equal probability of being selected. Then, a “postprocessing” step converts those pseudorandom numbers into a different probability distribution with a specified standard deviation — a limit for how much the values can vary from one another — that randomizes the numbers further. Basically, the random numbers must satisfy carefully chosen statistical parameters. This difficult mathematical problem consumes about 80 percent of all computation energy needed for lattice-based cryptography.

After analyzing all available methods for sampling, the researchers found that one method, called SHA-3, can generate many pseudorandom numbers two or three times more efficiently than all others. They tweaked SHA-3 to handle lattice-based cryptography sampling. On top of this, they applied some mathematical tricks to make pseudorandom sampling, and the postprocessing conversion to new distributions, faster and more efficient.

They run this technique using energy-efficient custom hardware that takes up only 9 percent of the surface area of their chip. In the end, this makes the process of sampling two orders of magnitude more efficient than traditional methods.

Splitting the data

On the hardware side, the researchers made innovations in data flow. Lattice-based cryptography processes data in vectors, which are tables of a few hundred or thousand numbers. Storing and moving those data requires physical memory components that take up around 80 percent of the hardware area of a circuit.

Traditionally, the data are stored on a single two-or four-port random access memory (RAM) device. Multiport devices enable the high data throughput required for encryption schemes, but they take up a lot of space.

For their circuit design, the researchers modified a technique called “number theoretic transform” (NTT), which functions similarly to the Fourier transform mathematical technique that decomposes a signal into the multiple frequencies that make it up. The modified NTT splits vector data and allocates portions across four single-port RAM devices. Each vector can still be accessed in its entirety for sampling as if it were stored on a single multiport device. The benefit is the four single-port REM devices occupy about a third less total area than one multiport device.

“We basically modified how the vector is physically mapped in the memory and modified the data flow, so this new mapping can be incorporated into the sampling process. Using these architecture tricks, we reduced the energy consumption and occupied area, while maintaining the desired throughput,” Banerjee says.

The circuit also incorporates a small instruction memory component that can be programmed with custom instructions to handle different sampling techniques — such as specific probability distributions and standard deviations — and different vector sizes and operations. This is especially helpful, as lattice-based cryptography schemes will most likely change slightly in the coming years and decades.

Adjustable parameters can also be used to optimize efficiency and security. The more complex the computation, the lower the efficiency, and vice versa. In their paper, the researchers detail how to navigate these tradeoffs with their adjustable parameters. Next, the researchers plan to tweak the chip to run all the lattice-based cryptography schemes listed in NIST’s second phase.

The work was supported by Texas Instruments and the TSMC University Shuttle Program.

[“source=news.mit.edu”]

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