Structural attacks for public key cryptosystems based on Gabidulin codes (Q2425529)

The author presents a new attack on the Gabidulin-Paramonov-Tretjakov variant of the McEliece cryptosystem. This variant uses codes in the rank metric which was introduced by Gabidulin. Section 1 is introductory. In Section 2, the author introduces the rank metric for linear codes. In Section 3, he describes the Gabidulin-Paramonov-Tretjakov (GPT) variant of the McEliece cryptosystem. Section 4 surveys the so-called structural attacks on such cryptosystems. In sections 5 and 6, the author develops a new powerful attack and argues that it is not possible to avoid this attack by using subfield codes of the Gabidulin codes. He concludes that none of the existing GPT variants is secure for parameters that are of practical interest.