Security bounds for the design of code-based cryptosystems

Abstract

Code-based cryptography is often viewed as an interesting "Post-Quantum" alternative to the classical number theory cryptography. Unlike many other such alternatives, it has the convenient advantage of having only a few, well identified, attack algorithms. However, improvements to these algorithms have made their effective complexity quite complex to compute. We give here some lower bounds on the work factor of idealized versions of these algorithms, taking into account all possible tweaks which could improve their practical complexity. The aim of this article is to help designers select durably secure parameters. © 2009 Springer-Verlag.