LEDAkem: A Post-quantum Key Encapsulation Mechanism Based on QC-LDPC Codes

  • Marco Baldi
  • Alessandro Barenghi
  • Franco Chiaraluce
  • Gerardo Pelosi
  • Paolo Santini
Conference paper
First Online:
Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNCS, volume 10786)

Abstract

This work presents a new code-based key encapsulation mechanism (KEM) called LEDAkem. It is built on the Niederreiter cryptosystem and relies on quasi-cyclic low-density parity-check codes as secret codes, providing high decoding speeds and compact keypairs. LEDAkem uses ephemeral keys to foil known statistical attacks, and takes advantage of a new decoding algorithm that provides faster decoding than the classical bit-flipping decoder commonly adopted in this kind of systems. The main attacks against LEDAkem are investigated, taking into account quantum speedups. Some instances of LEDAkem are designed to achieve different security levels against classical and quantum computers. Some performance figures obtained through an efficient C99 implementation of LEDAkem are provided.

Keywords

Code-based cryptography Key encapsulation mechanism Niederreiter cryptosystem Post-quantum cryptography Quasi-cyclic low-density parity-check codes 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

Paolo Santini was partly funded by Namirial SpA.

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Copyright information

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Università Politecnica delle MarcheAnconaItaly
  2. 2.Politecnico di MilanoMilanItaly

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