Channel Metrization

We present an algorithm that, given a channel, determines if there is a distance for it such that the maximum likelihood decoder coincides with the minimum distance decoder. We also show that any metric, up to a decoding equivalence, can be isometrically embedded into the hypercube with the Hamming metric, and thus, in terms of decoding, the Hamming metric is universal.
Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures, presented shorter version at WCC 2015