Cryptanalysis on AW digital signature scheme based on error-correcting codes

In 1993, Alabhadi and Wicker gave a modification to Xinmei Digital Signature Scheme based on error-correcting codes, which is usually denoted by AW Scheme. In this paper we show that the AW Scheme is actually not secure: anyone holding public keys of the signatory can obtain the equivalent private keys, and then forge digital signatures for arbitrary messages successfully. We also point out that one can hardly construct a digital signature scheme with high-level security due to the difficulty of decomposing large matrixes.