Nowadays, we are using the internet for everything. For
instance, we are using the internet to connect with friends and family, online
banking, shopping, and transferring information. In other words, we are giving
away our valuable information on the internet. And, as I mentioned earlier in
blog post “Hacking:
Prevention or Theft?”, hackers can easily hack most of the information we are
giving away on the internet. However, we can use cryptography techniques to
secure our information on the internet. So, today I would like to inform you
all about cryptography.
 |
| Encryption and Decryption techniques |
What is
Cryptography?
Cryptography is the study of securely transforming
information, so a third party cannot have any access to secured information.
Cryptography uses two main concepts called encryption and decryption to
securely transfer or store information. Encryption basically transforms stored
information to some unreadable text using probability and number theory. On the
other hand, decryption decodes the encrypted formula to convert unreadable text
to original text. So, now with cryptography technique if hackers were to get
access to transferred or stored information, then they will not be able to use
that information because it will be transformed into very unreadable text.
 |
| Caesar's Cipher Cryptography Technique |
Caesar’s Cipher
Now that I have introduced you about the cryptography, let me
give you one simple example to give you more insight about the technique of
cryptography. One of the simplest examples in cryptography is known as Caesar’s Cipher.
Julius Caesar was the first one to use cryptography technique. In Caesar’s
Cipher, encryption can shift all the letters by 3 characters. That means that
ABC will become DEF. Similarly, decryption will be simple because it simply
un-shifts the characters to the original text. So, when we read the encrypted text,
it will not make sense, but with a simple decryption method we will be able to
retrieve the original information back.
I hope you learned something interesting about cryptography by reading this post. I am looking forward to hear your opinion about this post, so please leave a comment.
References:
Hi Jay,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very informative and well-composed post! It was fun to read about cryptography and its methods because I remember to how to cipher and decipher characters by hand from my CS 47 class two years ago. I never realized that the legendary Julius Caesar was the first person who discovered cryptography back in the historical times. Therefore, I thank you for teaching me all of your information.
I agree with you that cryptography helps to secure your information and data from the internet. If hackers were to be able to hack into your computer, you would be surprised that your information has been stolen. They might even steal passwords from your bank and social networking accounts. With cryptography, no hacker can figure out how to encrypt your passwords from your property.
Excellent work on your post! Keep blogging!
Hi Jay, great post about security. Cryptography seems to a something that major companies cannot get right. If you remember a few years ago Sony has a massive breach in security and thousands of credit card numbers were stolen. The numbers were actually stored on plain text documents. I feel like if they with the method you described, then a lot less people would have been affected. I look forward to reading more of your posts.
ReplyDeleteHi Jay. Great blog post about cryptography! Cryptography is quite an interesting topic to talk about since its a integral part of internet security especially in this day in age. I definitely agree that cryptography helps to secure your digital life on the internet and if hackers were to access your computer, you would defintely want your data safe.
ReplyDeleteKeep on blogging!
Jeff
Hi Jay,
ReplyDeleteYour post is very nice. I totally agree what you mentioned at the beginning of your blog. Nowadays, we cannot live without internet. For example, I shop at Amazon. I pay all my bills using online banking. I chat with my friends by using Facebook or QQ. Information security is a big issue for me. Encryption is a big and important topic in computer science field. From your blog, I learn how the encryption and decryption work. Your explanation is detailed and clearly to understand
Hi Jay,
ReplyDeleteAwesome job with your blog. I really loved how you used the pictures as well as descriptive language to explain the process of caesar's cipher. I think it was nice how to explained a bit about a specific algorithm of cryptography because there are so many other there. Although it seems complicated, your explanation plus picture made it a lot easier for me to understand it. Keep up the good work and I will continue reading your blogs!
Hi Jay,
ReplyDeleteGreat post about Cryptography. My first experience with this subject was a competition in which we had to decipher a message and as I had no idea what to do I read a little into the subject of Cryptography and my very basic knowledge about it is that it makes it very difficult for any third party to get an encrypted piece of data because they do not have the key needed to decode the information so I’m glad you went a bit deeper and explained more about this subject. If you decide to make a follow up post I would love to hear about how the other parties encrypt and decrypt the data. How does the other party know what to decrypt the data with?