Combinatorial Characterisation of \(\ell\)-Optimal Authentication Codes with Arbitration

We study combinatorial structure of \(\ell\)-optimal \(A^2\)-codes that offer the best protection for spoofing of order up to \(\ell\) and require the least number of keys for the transmitter and the receiver. We prove that for such codes the transmitter’s encoding matrix is a strong partially balanced resolvable design, and the receiver’s verification matrix corresponds to an \(\alpha\)-resolvable design with special properties.