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Code-based cryptography

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Post-Quantum Cryptography

In this chapter, we consider the theory and the practice of code-based cryptographic systems. By this term, we mean the cryptosystems in which the algorithmic primitive (the underlying one-way function) uses an error correcting code C. This primitive may consist in adding an error to a word of C or in computing a syndrome relatively to a parity check matrix of C.

The first of those systems is a public key encryption scheme and it was proposed by Robert J. McEliece in 1978 [48]. The private key is a random bi¬nary irreducible Goppa code and the public key is a random generator matrix of a randomly permuted version of that code. The ciphertext is a codeword to which some errors have been added, and only the owner of the private key (the Goppa code) can remove those errors. Three decades later, some parameter adjustment have been required, but no attack is known to represent a serious threat on the system, even on a quantum computer.

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Authors
  1. Raphael Overbeck
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  2. Nicolas Sendrier
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois, Chicago, 851 S. Morgan St., Chicago, IL, 60607-7053, USA

    Daniel J. Bernstein

  2. Department of Computer Science, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Hochschulstr. 10, Darmstadt, 64289, Germany

    Johannes Buchmann  & Erik Dahmen  & 

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Overbeck, R., Sendrier, N. (2009). Code-based cryptography. In: Bernstein, D.J., Buchmann, J., Dahmen, E. (eds) Post-Quantum Cryptography. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-88702-7_4

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