A Brief History of Cryptography

Computer science is a vast field that includes nearly everything relating to computers. Everyday there is information transmitted all over the Internet. Pictures are uploaded, transactions are made on thousands of online retail websites, and banking transactions take place everyday on the Internet. All of these transactions have created a need for secure communications. People wish to keep things like banking, medical, and political information from the eyes of unwelcome parties. This has created a need for cryptography. Cryptography is the science or study of the techniques of secret writing, especially code and cipher systems, and is used by everyone from the average citizen to the government and military. Cryptography was first used long before the invention of computers. One well-known system was attributed to the reign of Julius Caesar (Klein ix). Another example is the famous Zimmerman telegraph, which was sent from Germany to Mexico during World War I (ix). In a more modern setting, cryptology was mainly used by the government until the late 1970s (Simpson 1). This is largely due to the fact that computers were too expensive, so not many households or businesses had them (1). However, after the computer revolution, cryptology became more public, especially in the business industry where there was a greater need to secure things like transactions (1). One of the largest parts of commerce is transaction. Transactions are needed anytime two parties exchange money or information. Since the Information Age has begun, transactions are more common over the Internet, where it is more imperative that transactions are secure (Klein x). Corporations have also become more widespread, which means that cryptography is needed to secu... ... middle of paper ... ...ets and Promises. New York: Cambridge UP, 2014. Print. Magnini, Giacomo. "Introduction to Public-Key Cryptography." Mozilla Developer Network. Red Hat, Inc., 26 Sept. 2005. Web. 3 Mar. 2014. Mone, Gregory. "Future-Proof Encryption." Academic Search Premier. EBSCO, 1 Nov. 2013. Web. 3 Mar. 2014. ?sid=49de02cd-bd5b-430f-a76b 30ab568bef4d%40sessionmgr4004&vid=23&hid=4107>. Northcutt, Stephen. "Security Laboratory." Hash Functions. Sans Technology Institute, n.d. Web. 3 Mar. 2014. "RSA Crypto." RSA Crypto. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Mar. 2014. Simpson, Sarah. "Cryptography Defined/Brief History." Cryptography Defined/Brief History. University of Texas, 1997. Web. 3 Mar. 2014. Smith, Craig. "Basic Cryptanalysis Techniques." Www.sans.org. Sans Institute, 17 Nov. 2001. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.