--- /home/rmisoczk/Documents/bike/Reference_Implementation.2017.11.30/Reference_Implementation/decode.c
+++ /home/rmisoczk/Documents/bike/Reference_Implementation.2018.06.29/Reference_Implementation/decode.c
@@ -314,7 +314,7 @@
     }
 
     // LINES 7-10 of One-Round Bit Flipping Algorithm:
-    while (getHammingWeight(s, R_BITS) > S_BIT_FLIPPING)
+    for (uint32_t i = 0; getHammingWeight(s, R_BITS) > S_BIT_FLIPPING && i < MAX_IT_LOOP1; i++)
     {
         for (int l = 0; l < DELTA_BIT_FLIPPING; l++)
         {
@@ -378,7 +378,7 @@
     }
 
     // LINES 13-15 of One-Round Bit Flipping Algorithm:
-    while (getHammingWeight(s, R_BITS) > u)
+    for (uint32_t k = 0; getHammingWeight(s, R_BITS) > u && k < MAX_IT_LOOP2; k++)
     {
         // find a random non-zero position in the syndrome:
         uint32_t i = 0;
@@ -416,7 +416,8 @@
         }
         DMSG("\t\t\t\tStep 4 (loop). Weight(syndrome): %d Weight(error): %d\n", getHammingWeight(s, R_BITS), getHammingWeight(e, N_BITS));
     }
-    // check if decoding finished:
+
+    // check if decoding succeeded:
     if (getHammingWeight(s, R_BITS) <= u)
     {
         DMSG("\t\tWeight(syndrome): %d\n", getHammingWeight(s, R_BITS));

--- /home/rmisoczk/Documents/bike/Reference_Implementation.2017.11.30/Reference_Implementation/defs.h
+++ /home/rmisoczk/Documents/bike/Reference_Implementation.2018.06.29/Reference_Implementation/defs.h
@@ -129,13 +129,26 @@
 
 // Divide by the divider and round up to next integer:
 #define DIVIDE_AND_CEIL(x, divider)  ((x/divider) + (x % divider == 0 ? 0 : 1ULL))
+
 // Round the size to the nearest byte.
 // SIZE suffix, is the number of bytes (uint8_t).
 #define N_BITS   (R_BITS*2)
 #define R_SIZE   DIVIDE_AND_CEIL(R_BITS, 8ULL)
 #define N_SIZE   DIVIDE_AND_CEIL(N_BITS, 8ULL)
 #define R_DQWORDS DIVIDE_AND_CEIL(R_SIZE, 16ULL)
-#define MAX_J_SIZE 5*T1
+
+// We conservatively set MAX_J_SIZE=n to ensure that matrix J (used in decoder)
+// always has enough allocated memory to store (a variable number of) indices:
+#define MAX_J_SIZE N_BITS
+
+// Regarding the while-loops presented in Algorithm 3 (One-Round Bit-Flipping),
+// we establish a maximum number of iterations in our implementation to ensure
+// that the execution always terminates, even in case of decoding failures.
+// As a conservative approach, we assume N_BITS for such upper bound. Note that
+// for the recommended parameters (and well-chosen parameters in general),
+// these loops will usually terminate within few iterations (far less than N).
+#define MAX_IT_LOOP1 N_BITS
+#define MAX_IT_LOOP2 N_BITS
 
 ////////////////////////////////////////////
 //             Debug

--- /home/rmisoczk/Documents/bike/Reference_Implementation.2017.11.30/Reference_Implementation/kem.c
+++ /home/rmisoczk/Documents/bike/Reference_Implementation.2018.06.29/Reference_Implementation/kem.c
@@ -32,8 +32,8 @@
  * SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
  ******************************************************************************/
 
-#include "stdio.h"
-#include "string.h"
+#include <stdio.h>
+#include <string.h>
 
 #include "parallel_hash.h"
 #include "openssl_utils.h"