Coding and cryptography
Weeks 1 and 2 (2023-2024)
Problems.
1. (Exercises 1.3.7 and 1.3.8) Find the maximum number of codewords of length n = 4 in a code in which
any single error can be detected. What about for general n?
2. (Example 1.3.2) Consider the code C = {000000, 010101, 101010, 111111}. This is a repetition code.
Show that C can detect any error of weight at most 2. Show that C can correct any error of weight 1.
3. Consider the code C whose codewords are obtained by repeating a word from {0, 1}m r times, so that
every codeword has length rm. Show that C can detect any error of weight r − 1 and that there is
at least one error of weight r that it cannot detect. Show also that C can correct any error of weight
⌊(r − 1)/2⌋. What is the information rate of this code?
4. Let C = {001, 101} and p = 0.9. Calculate θp (C, 001) and θp (C, 101).
5. Let C = {000000, 110000, 111111}. For each word w in X = {010100, 111100, 110100, 111110} find
the nearest neighbour in C. If we have a channel with reliability p, then for v in C and w in X find
ϕp (v, w), the probability that w is received when v is sent over the channel.
6. Let C = {00101, 11011, 10100, 10010}. Find the Hamming distance d(C).
7. Let C be the code consisting of all words of length n with even number of 1’s. What is the size of C?
Find the Hamming distance d(C).
8. Let C = {000000, 010101, 101010, 111111}. Find the Hamming distance d(C). What is the Hamming
distance of the general repetition code in Problem 3?
9. Find the dimension of code C = ⟨S⟩ for the following S. Also find a generating matrix and a parity
check matrix for these codes.
(a) S = {000, 111}.
(b) S = {1101, 1110, 1011}.
(c) S = {1100, 1010, 1001, 0101}.
10. Let H be the matrix consisting of 2r − 1 distinct non-zero rows of length r. Show that the columns
of H are linearly independent. Find the dimension of the code whose parity check matrix is H.
11. Find the distance of the codes in Problems 9 and 10.
12. Consider the code C for which the parity check matrix is
1 1 1
1 1 0
1 0 1
H= 0 1 1
1 0 0
0 1 0
0 0 1
(the case r = 3 in Problem 10). What is the most likely codeword sent if we receive 1101101?
1
13. Let C be a linear code with d = d(C) and u be a word in K n such that wt(u) ≤ ⌊(d − 1)/2⌋. Show
that u is the unique coset leader of u + C.
14. (Exercise 2.11.20) Let C be the code with parity check matrix
0 1 1
1 0 1
1 1 0
H= 1 0
.
0
0 1 0
0 0 1
Decode the following words: 110100, 111111, 101010 and 000110.
15. Let C be a code of length 4 and distance d = 3. Show that the Hamming bound gives |C| ≤ 3. Show
that we in fact have |C| ≤ 2.
