On the powerline system (Q1293966)

\textit{H. W. Lenstra jun.} introduced the ``powerline system'' (PS) in 1991 [J. Cryptology 3, 149-155 (1991; Zbl 0725.94003)]. The PS is a public key cryptosystem, based on the Chor-Rivest knapsack system. It differs from the latter in using monic polynomials for encryption and decryption. In the current paper the authors introduce the ``fractional powerline system'' (FPS). The FPS is obtained from the PS by using rational functions instead of polynomials. For this, an extension to the theorem of Bose and Chowla is proved. It is shown by the authors that the FPS is at least as secure as the PS, while having a better information rate. A disadvantage of the FPS is that decryption, which uses the Berlekamp-Massey algorithm, is slower. In practice, the FPS enables users to transmit a 135 bit secret by conveying a message of 208 bits, using a public key of 41,600 bits.