Pseudorandom Error-Correcting Codes
Miranda Christ Sam Gunn
We construct pseudorandom error-correcting codes (or simply pseudorandom
codes), which are error-correcting codes with the property that any polynomial
number of codewords are pseudorandom to any computationally-bounded adversary.
Efficient decoding of corrupted codewords is possible with the help of a
decoding key.
  We build pseudorandom codes that are robust to substitution and deletion
errors, where pseudorandomness rests on standard cryptographic assumptions.
Specifically, pseudorandomness is based on either $2^{O(\sqrt{n})}$-hardness of
LPN, or polynomial hardness of LPN and the planted XOR problem at low density.
  As our primary application of pseudorandom codes, we present an undetectable
watermarking scheme for outputs of language models that is robust to cropping
and a constant rate of random substitutions and deletions. The watermark is
undetectable in the sense that any number of samples of watermarked text are
computationally indistinguishable from text output by the original model. This
is the first undetectable watermarking scheme that can tolerate a constant rate
of errors.
  Our second application is to steganography, where a secret message is hidden
in innocent-looking content. We present a constant-rate stateless steganography
scheme with robustness to a constant rate of substitutions. Ours is the first
stateless steganography scheme with provable steganographic security and any
robustness to errors.