42 | Bogdan TIGANOAIA, Petrisor-Ionut ANGHEL
Informatics Technologies in Scientific Diplomacy, in the Context of Classical and Cyber Diplomacy
information, such as authentication keys or the format of the data being sent (usually
application/json); the body - this contains the actual data the client wants to send to the
server. The server’s response - after receiving the request, the server processes it and
sends back a response containing two critical things: a status code (a three-digit number
telling the client how the request went); the payload (the data). Most modern REST APIs
return data in a lightweight format called JSON (JavaScript Object Notation), which looks
like a structured list of key-value pairs.
The proposed hybrid architecture is operational in the alpha simulation phase,
achieving a ~95% file upload success rate and nearly 100% for downloads on a sample of
50 files with sizes in the 10-1024KB range. The lower upload success rate can be
attributed to occasional instability in the cryptographic pipeline for larger files, as well as
IPFS latency during decentralized storage.
5. Platform implementation – beta version
To evaluate the preliminary performance of the proposed hybrid web application, we
implemented a Python simulation that generates approximate values for the main system
operations. So, the decentralized platform was implemented and we are at the beta
version of the platform, for which we have tested several performance indicators /
metrics. The final version is proposed for the end of the year (2026) – with an analysis in
terms of performance indicators (times, scalability, etc.). The performance metrics for the
implemented version can be viewed in the paper written by (Tiganoaia et Anghel, 2026)
and consist of:
1. Authentication Latency - Comparative distribution for J. PAKE, QKD and HKDF
- authentication latency comes from the quantum key distribution phase, which requires
approximately 0.6 to 1.5 seconds per session, while the additional cost introduced by
deriving the session key through HKDF is negligible. Therefore, for small files, the hybrid
authentication process remains under 2 seconds, demonstrating the feasibility of this
method in a decentralized educational context.
2. Upload latency components by file size - Impact of encryption, IPFS and
Blockchain operations - for file uploads, the total latency increases proportionally to the
file size due to the linear scaling of the encryption process.
3. Download latency components by file size - IPFS retrieval and decryption time
- the dominant factor is the latency for retrieving data from IPFS, which varies between
0.5 and 1.9 seconds, while file downloads require only minimal decryption time, with
values below 1 second, confirming the efficiency of the AEAD encryption scheme used.
4. Upload Throughput vs. File Size – The transfer rate varies depending on the file
size, reaching up to approximately 300KB/s for uploads.
5. Download Throughput vs. File Size – The transfer rate varies depending on the
file size, reaching up to approximately 600KB/s for downloads.
6. Upload and Download Success Rates - Platform Stability in Simulation.\
Conclusions
1. Classical authentication is secured by the J. PAKE protocol, which uses zero-
knowledge proofs to allow two parties to establish a shared secret over an insecure
channel without revealing the password or its hash. This choice provides robustness
against offline dictionary attacks and guarantees mutual authentication without
centralized password storage.
2. To extend this fundamental security, the system incorporates a simulated quantum
key distribution mechanism using IBM’s Qiskit Runtime. Scalability considerations were
addressed by offloading large data (such as video lectures or training modules) to IPFS.
Only the content identifiers (CIDs) and metadata are stored on the blockchain. This
separation between the data payload and metadata allows for availability without
overloading the blockchain or incurring high transaction costs.
3. A list of all the technologies and frameworks that will be used in our hybrid
decentralized authentication and storage platform, enhanced with quantum technology:
React, Vue, Flask, Gunicorn, IBM Qiskit SDK, Solidity, Infura, Ethereum, IPFS.