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

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Authors: Saar Tarnopolsky, Alejandro Cohen
Cited by: 0
References: 75

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 innormalized divergence. Yet, this is not sufficient to guarantee security. We consider an efficient compression scheme uniform innon-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.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Cryptography and Data Security Coding theory and cryptography Quantum Information and Cryptography

Publication details

Journal / source
IEEE Transactions on Information Theory
Volume
72
Issue
3
Pages
1850–1873
Publication date
12 January 2026