Encryption Scheme Based on Expanded Reed-Solomon Codes
This work addresses key size efficiency in cryptography, particularly for code-based encryption, but appears incremental as it builds on existing McEliece frameworks.
The authors tackled the problem of reducing key sizes in code-based public-key cryptosystems by proposing a new encryption scheme using expanded Reed-Solomon codes, achieving a key size reduction of nearly 45% compared to the classic McEliece cryptosystem.
We present a code-based public-key cryptosystem, in which we use Reed-Solomon codes over an extension field as secret codes and disguise it by considering its shortened expanded code over the base field. Considering shortened expanded codes provides a safeguard against distinguisher attacks based on the Schur product. Moreover, without using a cyclic or a quasi-cyclic structure we obtain a key size reduction of nearly $45 \%$ compared to the classic McEliece cryptosystem proposed by Bernstein et al.