Properties of random codes endowed with the cover metric are considered. We prove the NP-hardness of the decoding problem and then provide a generic decoder, following the information set decoding idea from Prange’s algorithm in the Hamming metric. Despite the cover metric lying between the Hamming and the rank metric, the complexity analysis of the algorithm reveals a significant difference between the metrics.

We propose the first non-trivial generic decoding algorithm for codes in the sum-rank metric. The new method combines ideas of well-known generic decoders in the Hamming and rank metric. For the same code parameters and number of errors, the new generic decoder has a larger expected complexity than the known generic decoders for the Hamming metric and smaller than the known rank-metric decoders. Furthermore, we give a formal hardness reduction, providing evidence that generic sum-rank decoding is computationally hard. As a by-product of the above, we solve some fundamental coding problems in the sum-rank metric: we give an algorithm to compute the exact size of a sphere of a given sum-rank radius, and also give an upper bound as a closed formula; and we study erasure decoding with respect to two different notions of support.

This paper presents the first decoding algorithm for Gabidulin codes over Galois rings with provable quadratic complexity in the code length. The new method consists of two steps: (1) solving a syndrome-based key equation to obtain the annihilator polynomial of the error and therefore the column space of the error, (2) solving a key equation based on the received word in order to reconstruct the error vector. This two-step approach became necessary since standard solutions as the Euclidean algorithm do not properly work over rings.

This paper presents an algorithm for decoding any linear interleaved code of high interleaving order in the rank metric. The new decoder is an adaptation of the Hamming-metric decoder by Metzner and Kapturowski (1990) and guarantees to correct all rank errors of weight up to$d-2$whose rank over the large base field of the code equals the number of errors, where$d$is the minimum rank distance of the underlying code. It is based on linear-algebraic computations, and has an explicit and easy-to-handle success condition.

Low-rank parity-check (LRPC) codes are rank-metric codes over finite fields, which have been proposed by Gaborit et al. (Proceedings of the workshop on coding and cryptography WCC, vol 2013, 2013) for cryptographic applications. Inspired by a recent adaption of Gabidulin codes to certain finite rings by Kamche et al. (IEEE Trans Inf Theory 65(12):7718-7735, 2019), we define and study LRPC codes over Galois rings-a wide class of finite commutative rings. We give a decoding algorithm similar to Gaborit et al.'s decoder, based on simple linear-algebraic operations. We derive an upper bound on the failure probability of the decoder, which is significantly more involved than in the case of finite fields. The bound depends only on the rank of an error, i.e., is independent of its free rank. Further, we analyze the complexity of the decoder. We obtain that there is a class of LRPC codes over a Galois ring that can decode roughly the same number of errors as a Gabidulin code with the same code parameters, but faster than the currently best decoder for Gabidulin codes. However, the price that one needs to pay is a small failure probability, which we can bound from above.

Abstract We propose the new rank-metric code-based cryptosystem which is based on the hardness of list decoding and interleaved decoding of Gabidulin codes. is an improved variant of the Faure–Loidreau (FL) system, which was broken in a structural attack by Gaborit, Otmani, and Talé Kalachi (GOT, 2018). We keep the FL encryption and decryption algorithms, but modify the insecure key generation algorithm. Our crucial observation is that the GOT attack is equivalent to decoding an interleaved Gabidulin code. The new key generation algorithm constructs public keys for which all polynomial-time interleaved decoders fail—hence resists the GOT attack. We also prove that the public-key encryption version of is IND-CPA secure in the standard model and the key encapsulation mechanisms version is IND-CCA2 secure in the random oracle model, both under hardness assumptions of formally defined problems related to list decoding and interleaved decoding of Gabidulin codes. We propose and analyze various exponential-time attacks on these problems, calculate their work factors, and compare the resulting parameters to NIST proposals. The strengths of are short ciphertext sizes and (relatively) small key sizes. Further, guarantees correct decryption and has no decryption failure rate. It is not based on hiding the structure of a code. Since there are efficient and constant-time algorithms for encoding and decoding Gabidulin codes, timing attacks on the encryption and decryption algorithms can be easily prevented.

We propose the first non-trivial generic decoding algorithm for codes in the sum-rank metric. The new method combines ideas of well-known generic decoders in the Hamming and rank metric. For the same code parameters and number of errors, the new generic decoder has a larger expected complexity than the known generic decoders for the Hamming metric and smaller than the known rank-metric decoders.

We define and analyze low-rank parity-check (LRPC) codes over extension rings of the finite chain ring Zpr, where p is a prime and r is a positive integer. LRPC codes have originally been proposed by Gaborit et al. (2013) over finite fields for cryptographic applications. The adaption to finite rings is inspired by a recent paper by Kamche et al. (2019), which constructed Gabidulin codes over finite principle ideal rings with applications to space-time codes and network coding. We give a decoding algorithm based on simple linear-algebraic operations. Further, we derive an upper bound on the failure probability of the decoder. The upper bound is valid for errors whose rank is equal to the free rank.

A repair of the Faure-Loidreau (FL) public-key code-based cryptosystem is proposed. The FL cryptosystem is based on the hardness of list decoding Gabidulin codes which are special rank-metric codes. We prove that the recent structural attack on the system by Gaborit et al. is equivalent to decoding an interleaved Gabidulin code. Since all known polynomial-time decoders for these codes fail for a large constructive class of error patterns, we are able to construct public keys that resist the attack. It is also shown that all other known attacks fail for our repair and parameter choices. Compared to other code-based cryptosystems, we obtain significantly smaller key sizes for the same security level.