Selecting Parameters for Secure McEliece-based Cryptosystems

In 1994, P. Shor showed that quantum computers will be able to break cryptosystems based on integer factorization and on the discrete logarithm, e.g. RSA or ECC. Code-based crytosystems are promising alternatives to public key schemes based on these problems, and they are believed to be secure against quantum computer attacks. In this paper, we solve the problem of selecting optimal parameters for the McEliece cryptosystem that provide security until a given year and give detailed recommendations. Our analysis is based on the lower bound complexity estimates by Sendrier and Finiasz, and the security requirements model proposed by Lenstra and Verheul

Estimating the dimension of the subfield subcodes of hermitian codes

In this paper, we study the behavior of the true dimension of the subfield subcodes of Hermitian codes. Our motivation is to use these classes of linear codes to improve the parameters of the McEliece cryptosystem, such as key size and security level. The McEliece scheme is one of the promising alternative cryptographic schemes to the current public key schemes since in the last four decades, they resisted all known quantum computing attacks. By computing and analyzing a data collection of true dimensions of subfield subcodes, we concluded that they can be estimated by the extreme value distribution function

PQCMC: Post-Quantum Cryptography McEliece-Chen Implicit Certificate Scheme

In recent years, the elliptic curve Qu-Vanstone (ECQV) implicit certificate scheme has found application in security credential management systems (SCMS) and secure vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication to issue pseudonymous certificates. However, the vulnerability of elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC) to polynomial-time attacks posed by quantum computing raises concerns. In order to enhance resistance against quantum computing threats, various post-quantum cryptography methods have been adopted as standard (e.g. Dilithium) or candidate standard methods (e.g. McEliece cryptography), but state of the art has proven to be challenging to implement implicit certificates using lattice-based cryptography methods. Therefore, this study proposes a post-quantum cryptography McEliece-Chen (PQCMC) based on an efficient random invertible matrix generation method to issue pseudonymous certificates with less computation time. The study provides mathematical models to validate the key expansion process for implicit certificates. Furthermore, comprehensive security evaluations and discussions are conducted to demonstrate that distinct implicit certificates can be linked to the same end entity. In experiments, a comparison is conducted between the certificate length and computation time to evaluate the performance of the proposed PQCMC. This study demonstrates the viability of the implicit certificate scheme based on PQC as a means of countering quantum computing threats

Selecting Parameters for Secure McEliece-based Cryptosystems

In 1994, P. Shor showed that quantum computers will be able to break cryptosystems based on the problems of integer factorization and the discrete logarithm, e.g. RSA or ECC. Code-based crytosystems are promising alternatives to public key schemes built on these problems, and they are believed to be secure against quantum computer attacks. In this paper, we solve the problem of selecting optimal parameters for the McEliece cryptosystem that are expected to provide security at least until a given year and give detailed recommendations. Our analysis is based on the lower bound complexity estimates by Sendrier and Finiasz, and the security requirements model proposed by Lenstra and Verheul. This security model uses assumptions about Moore’s Law and other developments in order to estimate the attained security level for a given year

Designing and Improving Code-based Cryptosystems

In modern cryptography, the security of the most secure cryptographic primitives is based on hard problems coming from number theory such as the factorization and the discrete logarithm problem.However, being mainly based on the intractability of those problems seems to be risky. In 1994, Peter Shor showed how these two problems can be solved in polynomial time using a quantum computer. In contrast, crypttographic primitives based on problems from coding theory are believed to resistquantum computer based attacks and the best known attacks have exponential running time. Alongwith post-quantum security, code-based systems offer other advantages for present-day applicationsdue to their excellent algorithmic efficiency. Actually, they run faster than traditional cryptosystemslike RSA, since they only require very simple operations like shifts and XORs instead of expensivecomputations over big integers. However, although efficient, most code-based schemes suffer fromconsiderably large key sizes. Codes with algebraic structure such as quasi-cyclic and quasi-dyadiccodes, were proposed to overcome the key size issue, but it has been shown to be insecure against algebraic cryptanalysis. This thesis contributes to the research and development of code-based cryptosystems. In particular,we are interested in developing as well as improving three important primitives: stream ciphers andhash functions. We study the FSB hash function and the SYND stream cipher and find a way to con-siderably improve their efficiency, while maintaining the security reduction to the same NP-complete problems. Independently of these results, we address and solve the problem of selecting appropriate parametersets for the binary Goppa code-based McEliece cryptosystem. Based on the Lenstra-Verheul model,we also provide, for the first time, a framework allowing to choose optimal parameters that offer adesired security level in a given year