Notes: Practical Post-Quantum Cryptography for Bandwidth Constrained or Non-Terrestrial Networks, and Power Constrained Devices
The core takeaway is that many systems already have a shared secret anchored in trusted hardware, such as a SIM or TPM, and infrastructure that already knows how to derive and manage keys from it.
The authors propose reusing that existing trust: derive an application-specific secret, make it available through a KDC and trusted transfer agent, use it for TLS or DTLS PSK authentication—otherwise the dominant source of resource consumption and handshake unreliability—and keep ML-KEM for ephemeral post-quantum key establishment and forward secrecy.
This avoids dragging large post-quantum certificates and signatures across constrained devices and lossy links. The authors observed about 70% less handshake bandwidth and roughly one-third the energy consumption. The broader takeaway is that, in some scenarios, post-quantum readiness may not require rebuilding the authentication stack if the system already has a scalable symmetric root of trust.