Improving the efficiency of the LDPC code-based McEliece cryptosystem through irregular codes
This work addresses the need for more efficient post-quantum cryptography systems, offering incremental improvements in key size and performance for secure communications.
The paper tackles the efficiency of the LDPC code-based McEliece cryptosystem by proposing the use of irregular LDPC codes and transformation matrices, resulting in improved error correction performance and reduced public key size compared to regular LDPC codes.
We consider the framework of the McEliece cryptosystem based on LDPC codes, which is a promising post-quantum alternative to classical public key cryptosystems. The use of LDPC codes in this context allows to achieve good security levels with very compact keys, which is an important advantage over the classical McEliece cryptosystem based on Goppa codes. However, only regular LDPC codes have been considered up to now, while some further improvement can be achieved by using irregular LDPC codes, which are known to achieve better error correction performance than regular LDPC codes. This is shown in this paper, for the first time at our knowledge. The possible use of irregular transformation matrices is also investigated, which further increases the efficiency of the system, especially in regard to the public key size.