Paper 2025/596

Highway to Hull: An Algorithm for Solving the General Matrix Code Equivalence Problem

Abstract

The matrix code equivalence problem consists, given two matrix spaces $\mathcal{C},\mathcal{D}\subset \mathbb{F}_q^{m\times n}$ of dimension $k$, in finding invertible matrices $P\in\textrm{GL}_m(\mathbb{F}_q)$ and $Q\in\textrm{GL}_n(\mathbb{F}_q)$ such that $\mathcal{D} =P\mathcal{C} Q^{-1}$. Recent signature schemes such as MEDS and ALTEQ relate their security to the hardness of this problem. Naranayan et. al. recently published an algorithm solving this problem in the case $k = n =m$ in $\widetilde{\mathcal{O}}(q^{\frac k 2})$ operations. We present a different algorithm which solves the problem in the general case. Our approach consists in reducing the problem to the matrix code conjugacy problem, i.e. the case $P=Q$. For the latter problem, similarly to the permutation code equivalence problem in Hamming metric, a natural invariant based on the \emph{Hull} of the code can be used. Next, the equivalence of codes can be deduced using a usual list collision argument. For $k=m=n$, our algorithm achieves the same complexity as in the aforementioned reference. However, it extends to a much broader range of parameters.