Cryptographical Properties of Ising Spin Systems

Yoshiyuki Kabashima, Tatsuto Murayama, David Saad

Published 2000-02-09Version 1

The relation between Ising spin systems and public-key cryptography is investigated using methods of statistical physics. The insight gained from the analysis is used for devising a matrix-based cryptosystem whereby the ciphertext comprises products of the original message bits; these are selected by employing two predetermined randomly-constructed sparse matrices. The ciphertext is decrypted using methods of belief-propagation. The analyzed properties of the suggested cryptosystem show robustness against various attacks and competitive performance to modern cyptographical methods.