Finding Significant Fourier Coefficients: Clarifications, Simplifications, Applications and Limitations

Ideas from Fourier analysis have been used in cryptography for the last three decades. Akavia, Goldwasser and Safra unified some of these ideas to give a complete algorithm that finds significant Fourier coefficients of functions on any finite abelian group. Their algorithm stimulated a lot of interest in the cryptography community, especially in the context of `bit security'. This manuscript attempts to be a friendly and comprehensive guide to the tools and results in this field. The intended readership is cryptographers who have heard about these tools and seek an understanding of their mechanics and their usefulness and limitations. A compact overview of the algorithm is presented with emphasis on the ideas behind it. We show how these ideas can be extended to a `modulus-switching' variant of the algorithm. We survey some applications of this algorithm, and explain that several results should be taken in the right context. In particular, we point out that some of the most important bit security problems are still open. Our original contributions include: a discussion of the limitations on the usefulness of these tools; an answer to an open question about the modular inversion hidden number problem

On products and powers of linear codes under componentwise multiplication

In this text we develop the formalism of products and powers of linear codes under componentwise multiplication. As an expanded version of the author's talk at AGCT-14, focus is put mostly on basic properties and descriptive statements that could otherwise probably not fit in a regular research paper. On the other hand, more advanced results and applications are only quickly mentioned with references to the literature. We also point out a few open problems. Our presentation alternates between two points of view, which the theory intertwines in an essential way: that of combinatorial coding, and that of algebraic geometry. In appendices that can be read independently, we investigate topics in multilinear algebra over finite fields, notably we establish a criterion for a symmetric multilinear map to admit a symmetric algorithm, or equivalently, for a symmetric tensor to decompose as a sum of elementary symmetric tensors.Comment: 75 pages; expanded version of a talk at AGCT-14 (Luminy), to appear in vol. 637 of Contemporary Math., AMS, Apr. 2015; v3: minor typos corrected in the final "open questions" sectio