Cryptography has been used for thousands of years for storing hidden messages in writing (Davies, 1997). Cryptography itself is part of cryptology, which also includes cryptanalysis. Cryptanalysis involves the attempt to obtain the original message from an encrypted message, but without determining the algorithms or knowing the keys that created the original encrypted message. Cryptography, which is the topic of this paper, is the actual development of the encrypted messages, and using codes to create secure communication of information (Whitman & Mattord, 2011).
As mentioned, cryptography has been around for thousands of years in one form or another. Various forms of “secret writing” were performed and enhanced over time, but there was no remarkable improvement until the Renaissance. At that point, the science of cryptography became an area of study, with techniques being written down. It was brought on by a time of war, competition and political intrigue within the Italian, Venetian and British states (Davies, 1997).
The most dominant form of cryptography was nomenclator, which was developed from simply ciphers where each letter is replaced by a different letter. Substitute letters are part of a fixed table. This technique was very easy to decipher because of commonly used letters and words, but was refined over time to diminish this defect. One technique used to refine nomenclature was the use of polyalphabetic substitution, which uses many cipher alphabets and removes the issue of letter frequency (Davies, 1997).
In the early 1900’s is when many more complex machines were created and were used extensively for cryptography in World War II. The Enigma was one such machine, and was used by the Germans pervasively. Interestingly...
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In post-world war one Europe, secrecy between nations became paranoid. The growth of international commerce created a need for companies to keep their secrets from competitors. In this era, a German engineer, Arthur Scherbius created the Enigma machine as a means of keeping the business, diplomatic and military conversations secret.
Alan Turing was a very intelligent man who attended Bletchley Park the main site for code breaking. Alan Turing invented “bombe,” an electromechanical device. “Bombe” helped decipher encrypted messages given by Enigma. Later Gordon Welchman made significant improvements to “bombe.” The information received from Enigma, known as “ultra” was used in every step of the decoding process (O’Neill 160). Ultra was considered as ‘top secret’ and only few knew about the whole operation. Turing’s impeccable intelligence helped break Enigma. As well as develop a technique, “banburismus” that later helped read naval messages. Thanks to Turing and the “bombe” German codes were broken and prevented many
The German Military used the Enigma Machine since 1920. During the time World War Two came along, it had advanced some. The way the machine worked as the operator typed a message and then the Enigma machine scrambled the words using a complicated letter system generated by rotors and electric circuits. To decode a Enigma message, one must need to know the exact settings of the wheels and gears of the machine. German military generals and officers believed that the Enigma Code Machine was unbreakable so they used it for practically everything, battlefield, naval, and just normal war talk. The Polish came close to cracking the Enigma codes by improvising and getting tremendous help from the British at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire where a team of intelligent experts eventually cracked the code.
In 1995, Leonard N. Foner, a researcher at the MIT Media Lab, wrote “Cryptography and the Politics of One’s True Name,” an essay discussing the morality and legality of cryptography in both the public and private sectors. In this essay, he argues that strong cryptography is essential to the privacy of secure exchanges of money and information. While Foner’s essay was certainly relevant when it was written, the advancements in technology made since then as well as the dramatic increase in dependency on cryptography for everyday aspects of life make his essay more relevant than ever. When emphasizing the value of cryptography, Foner explains in great detail how cryptography works, which helps the reader understand the importance and impact of
Cryptography during the 1940’s when the U.S. became were involved in World War II had a huge beneficial impact on the outcome of many key battles. Its impacts helped to snowball certain Military and Naval strategies because of their knowledge of the enemies next offensive threats. The improvements made over decades to the study of cryptology, made deciphering codes more efficient and ultimately turned the tables for the allies after the Battle of Midway.
Levenson, H. (1973). The historical ciphers, that comprised of the pen and paper. Journal of Technology, 41, 397-404.
My knowledge has grown over the past six years, outwith the areas of learning offered by school courses, and I see this course as an opportunity to gain new skills and broaden my knowledge further. My main interests are varied, including communications and the internet, system analysis and design, software development, processors and low level machine studies. I have recently developed an interest in data encryption, hence my active participation in the RSA RC64 Secret-Key challenge, the latest international de-encryption contest from the RSA laboratories of America.
Information security plays a central role in the deployment of modern communication systems. The most important objectives of information security are authentication, confidentiality, data integrity and non-repudiation. Confidentiality ensures that information is accessible only to those authorized to have access. Authentication is the process proving the identity that assures the communicating entity is the one that it claimed to be, this means that the user or the system can prove their own identities to other parties who don’t have personal knowledge of their identities. Data integrity ensures that the received information has not been altered in any way from its original form. Data integrity safeguards the accuracy and completeness of information and processing methods. Non-repudiation is a mechanism used to prove that the sender really sent this information and the information was received by the specified party, so the recipient cannot claim that the information was not sent. Communication systems are widely interconnected and interdependent and use the same technologies to create a uniform digital world. In this era of digital information system resources are not safe from attacks. Public and widespread use of digital tools in communication quickly causes the creation of secure mechanisms. Cryptography technique is one of them. Cryptography is the basic encryption method used in implementing security. The word cryptography comes from the Greek word "Kryptos", that means hidden, and "Graphikos" which means writing. Cryptography or communication by using secret code was used by the Egyptians some 4000 years ago. However, the science of cryptography was initiated by Arabs since 600s. Cryptography becomes vital in the twentieth...
Cryptography started a long, long time ago with Julius Caesar. When he wanted only his people to know something he used cryptography. He did this by replacing A’s with D’s, B’s with E’s, and so on down the alphabet. This was known as "shift by 3", for obvious reasons. The Jewish writers also used a code of their own called Atbash. They did it by reversing the alphabet, they used the last letter of the alphabet in place of the first, the next to last for the second, and so on. Atbash is exemplified in the Bible,
Coming into the nineteen century, machines such as the Hebern rotor machine and The Engima machine were beginning to be built to create ciphers for military and other uses. The majority of the work on cryptography was for military purposes, typically used to conceal mystery military data. In any case, cryptography pulled in business consideration post-war, with organizations attempting to secure their information from rivals. Throughout and before World War II, the primary provisions of cryptography were military.
Cryptography is the concept and process of hiding information. The process of converting the data into a disguised form so that it is hard to understand is called encryption. The data that results when the plaintext is converted into unreadable gibberish is called ciphertext. T...
Now is a time which the information is extremely development. A lot of datas are stored by the form of electronic messages. The transmission of the information is often through electronic medium such as mobile phone communication, electronic commerce, the on-line chat service etc. Unfortunately, those way of transmit the information are not safe. The message that we delivered is possible be stolen or monitored. If we have no appropriate protect measure, so once the important messages leaks out, the result may be inconceivable.
Cryptography is the common term given to the art and science of keeping the text messages secret. It is not the purpose to evaluate in detail any of the mathematical algorithms that are used in the cryptographic process, but instead to provide a general view of the process and its uses. To introduce briefly one of the fundamental building blocks of all network security, one must know the process of encryption and decryption. A process that transforms the given information (the plaintext) into a seemingly meaningless form (the ciphertext) using a mathematical algorithm and some secret information (the encryption key). The process of decryption revokes this transformation using a mathematical algorithm, in conjunction with some secret value (the decryption key) that reverses the effects of the encryption algorithm. An encryption algorithm and all its possible keys, plaintexts and cipher texts is known as a cryptosystem or cryptographic system. Figure 4 illustrates the process.
Thousands of years ago calculations were done using people’s fingers and pebbles that were found just lying around. Technology has transformed so much that today the most complicated computations are done within seconds. Human dependency on computers is increasing everyday. Just think how hard it would be to live a week without a computer. We owe the advancements of computers and other such electronic devices to the intelligence of men of the past.
advances in computing came with time. The discoveries became more and more significant and computers became more and more advanced. In 1943, a computer used in Britain for code-breaking was created, followed by the 1945 completion of the Electronic Numerical Integrator Analyzor and Computer, which was used in the United States to assist in the preparation of firing tables for artillery. Computers really began to prove useful even in situations that we never thought possible, like in war and protection.