← Wednesday, October 14, 2026SecurityDeep dive

ML-DSA hashes the public key before signing, raising protocol-design concerns

blog.erincandescent.net 4 min read Editor score 7/10

The piece explains how signing a message hash can enable signatures on messages the signer has not seen, and compares protections in Ed25519 and ML-DSA. Protocol designers should understand how signature construction affects message-binding assumptions.

What
ML-DSA includes a hash of its public key in the digest used for signing a message.
How
Verification may require parsing signed content to find a key and repeating message hashing for trial keys; the post proposes moving the key hash to the end.
Why it matters
Protocol designers must account for parsing and repeated-hash costs, especially when a message may be checked against multiple keys.

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