Coding-Based Hybrid Post-Quantum Cryptosystem for Non-Uniform Information

  • Saar Tarnopolsky
  • , Alejandro Cohen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We introduce a novel hybrid universal network coding cryptosystem (NU-HUNCC) for non-uniform messages in the finite blocklength regime that provides Post-Quantum (PQ) security at high communication rates. Recently, hybrid cryptosystems offered PQ security by premixing the data using secure linear coding schemes and encrypting only a small portion of it. The data is assumed to be uniformly distributed, an assumption that is often challenging to enforce. Standard fixed-length lossless source coding and compression schemes guarantee a uniform output in normalized divergence. Yet, this is not sufficient to guarantee security. We consider an efficient compression scheme uniform in non-normalized variational distance, that by utilizing a uniform sub-linear shared seed, guarantees PQ security. Specifically, for the proposed PQ cryptosystem, first, we provide an end-to-end practical coding scheme, NU-HUNCC, for non-uniform messages. Second, we show that NU-HUNCC is information-theoretic individually secured (IS) against an eavesdropper with access to any subset of the links and provide a converse proof against such an eavesdropper. Third, we introduce a modified security definition, individual semantic security under a chosen ciphertext attack (ISS-CCA1), and show that against an all-observing eavesdropper, NU-HUNCC satisfies its conditions. Finally, we provide an analysis of NU-HUNCC’s high data rate, low computational complexity, and the negligibility of the shared seed size.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1850-1873
Number of pages24
JournalIEEE Transactions on Information Theory
Volume72
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2026
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Post-quantum cryptography
  • communication system security
  • compression
  • cryptography
  • encryption
  • information-theoretic security
  • non-uniform
  • polar codes
  • public key
  • secure network coding

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Information Systems
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Library and Information Sciences

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