On McEliece-Type Cryptosystems Using Self-Dual Codes With Large Minimum Weight

Journal Article (2023)
Author(s)

Luca Mariot (University of Twente)

S. Picek (TU Delft - Cyber Security, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen)

R.A. R Yorgova (TU Delft - Cyber Security)

Research Group
Cyber Security
Copyright
© 2023 L. Mariot, S. Picek, R.A. R Yorgova
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2023.3271767
More Info
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Publication Year
2023
Language
English
Copyright
© 2023 L. Mariot, S. Picek, R.A. R Yorgova
Research Group
Cyber Security
Volume number
11
Pages (from-to)
43511-43519
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Abstract

One of the Round 3 Finalists in the NIST post-quantum cryptography call is the Classic McEliece cryptosystem. Although it is one of the most secure cryptosystems, the large size of its public key remains a practical limitation. In this work, we propose a McEliece-type cryptosystem using large minimum distance error-correcting codes derived from self-dual codes. To the best of our knowledge, such codes have not been implemented in a code-based cryptosystem until now. Moreover, we modify the decryption step of the system by introducing a decryption algorithm based on two private keys. We determine the parameters of binary codes with large minimum distance, which, if implemented into a McEliece-type cryptosystem, would provide a security level respectively of 80, 128, and 256 bits. For the 80-bit security case, we construct a large minimum distance self-dual code of length 1064, and use it to derive a random punctured code to be used in the corresponding McEliece-type cryptosystem. Compared to the original McEliece cryptosystem, the key size is reduced by about 38.5%, although an optimal decoding set is yet to be constructed to make the new system fully defined and usable.