polarRLCE: A New Code-Based Cryptosystem Using Polar Codes

Abstract

Security challenges brought about by the upcoming 5G era should be taken seriously. Code-based cryptography leverages difficult problems in coding theory and is one of the main techniques enabling cryptographic primitives in the postquantum scenario. In this work, we propose the first efficient secure scheme based on polar codes (i.e., polarRLCE) which is inspired by the RLCE scheme, a candidate for the NIST postquantum cryptography standardization in the first round. In addition to avoiding some weaknesses of the RLCE scheme, we show that, with the proper choice of parameters, using polar codes, it is possible to design an encryption scheme to achieve the intended security level while retaining a reasonably small public key size. In addition, we also present a KEM version of the polarRLCE scheme that can attain a negligible decryption failure rate within the corresponding security parameters. It is shown that our proposal enjoys an apparent advantage to decrease the public key size, especially on the high-security level.