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NOQTIS

Coming from minisign or signify

minisign and signify sign files with Ed25519 and small key files. NOQTIS works the same way, with a choice of post-quantum algorithms, and adds sealed folders.

minisign signify NOQTIS
minisign -G signify -G -p key.pub -s key.sec noqtis keygen -a ML-DSA-65 -o key (writes key, key.pub)
minisign -Sm file signify -S -s key.sec -m file noqtis sign -k key file (writes file.sig)
minisign -Vm file -p key.pub signify -V -p key.pub -m file noqtis verify -p key.pub -s file.sig file
signify -C -p key.pub -x SHA256.sig noqtis check -p key.pub <dir> on a sealed folder

Differences to know

Section titled “Differences to know”
  • Algorithms. minisign and signify have one: Ed25519. NOQTIS has ML-DSA and SLH-DSA (post-quantum), Ed25519, and hybrids of ML-DSA with Ed25519 that need both to verify. noqtis algs lists them. Ed25519 alone is there for compatibility and cannot seal a capsule.
  • Signature size. An Ed25519 signature is 64 bytes. An ML-DSA-65 signature is 3309 bytes and an SLH-DSA-SHA2-128s one 7856. For files that is rarely a problem; for many tiny messages it may be.
  • Raw signatures. noqtis sign writes the raw signature bytes, with no comment lines. minisign’s trusted comments have no counterpart; put what you want signed in the file, or seal a folder and use --meta.
  • Contexts. noqtis sign -c <ctx> binds a signature to a purpose string (FIPS 204 and 205 contexts), so it cannot be passed off as a signature for something else. A verifier must give the same -c.
  • Pre-hashing. minisign signs a BLAKE2b pre-hash of large files. noqtis sign --ph sha512 uses the standard pre-hash variants (HashML-DSA, HashSLH-DSA); without --ph the whole file is signed.
  • Secret key files. minisign encrypts the secret key with a password by default. NOQTIS writes it owner-only (mode 0600) but not encrypted: keep it on an encrypted disk or in your CI’s secret store (keys).

signify’s checksum lists and sealed folders

Section titled “signify’s checksum lists and sealed folders”

signify -C checks a signed list of digests, like sha256sum -c with a signature. A sealed folder does that and more: it also refuses files added after sealing, links and special files, and an edited manifest. See coming from sha256sum and GPG.