A new algorithm for finding minimum-weight words in a linear code: application to McEliece's cryptosystem and to narrow-sense BCH codes of length 511

摘要

An algorithm for finding minimum-weight words in large linear codes is developed. It improves all previous attacks on the public-key cryptosystems based on codes and it notably points out some weaknesses in McEliece's (1978) cipher. We also determine with it the minimum distance of some BCH codes of length 511.