  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.
