Cryptography is the practice and study of hiding information.
The use of cryptography dates back to the beginning of man's use of written language.
The word cryptography comes from the Greek meaning hidden writing.
The oldest physical examples we have of using written codes dates back to the Spartan government's use of scytales. These were special devices in which the sender and recipient each had a special cylinder of the same size. A ribbon was wrapped around the cylinder and the message written vertically on the ribbon. The ribbon was worn as a belt and delivered to the receiver. Once the receiver wrapped the ribbon on the appropriate cylinder the message could be deciphered by reading vertically.
A few noted cryptographers were:
Cryptography has become a very important part of computer technology and an integral part of the Internet. The ability to encrypt and decrypt information is crucial to secure financial transactions and even elementary forms of on-line privacy.
Cryptography is used in present technologically in advanced societies; examples include the security of ATM cards, computer passwords, and electronic commerce, which all depend on cryptography.
The use of cryptography dates back to the beginning of man's use of written language.
The word cryptography comes from the Greek meaning hidden writing.
The oldest physical examples we have of using written codes dates back to the Spartan government's use of scytales. These were special devices in which the sender and recipient each had a special cylinder of the same size. A ribbon was wrapped around the cylinder and the message written vertically on the ribbon. The ribbon was worn as a belt and delivered to the receiver. Once the receiver wrapped the ribbon on the appropriate cylinder the message could be deciphered by reading vertically.
A few noted cryptographers were:
- Julius Caesar: He developed the first use of a substitution alphabet for ciphers.
- Roger Bacon: Quoted as saying "A man is crazy who writes a secret in any other way than one which will conceal it from the vulgar."
- Sir Francis Bacon: He developed the reputed baconian cipher using a bilateral system consisting of 5-bit binary encoding and utilizing a variation in type face as the key. There is ample evidence showing that Bacon was indeed the author of Shakespeare's work and these works are riddled with baconian ciphers.
- Thomas Jefferson: Invented a wheel cipher.
- Charles Babbage: Re-invented another wheel cipher.
- Edgar Allan Poe: He was very fond of and talented at creating and deciphering key word codes.
- Alan Turing: Very interested in cryptography and worked on government code-breaking.
Cryptography has become a very important part of computer technology and an integral part of the Internet. The ability to encrypt and decrypt information is crucial to secure financial transactions and even elementary forms of on-line privacy.
Cryptography is used in present technologically in advanced societies; examples include the security of ATM cards, computer passwords, and electronic commerce, which all depend on cryptography.
1 comment:
Absolute information about cryptography is provided above. The detail you have summed up is short but useful for a fresher to learn about the basics. Thanks a lot.
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