Encryption - the process of turning a clear-text message (plaintext) into a data stream which looks like a meaningless and random sequence of bits (ciphertext).
Decryption - the process of getting plaintext from encrypted data.
Cipher - a cryptographic algorithm that uses a mathematical functions which takes plaintext as the input and produces ciphertext as the output and vice versa.
Key - a cryptographic key is a string of bits used by a cryptographic algorithm to transform plain text into cipher text or vice versa.
Stream ciphers - symmetric algorithms that operate on 1 bit (or sometimes 1 byte) of plaintext at a time.
Block ciphers - algorithms that operate on blocks of bits at a time.
Symmetric algorithms - algorithms that we the same key for encryption and decryption.
Public-Key (Asymmetric) algorithms - algorithms that use two different keys (public and private) for encryption and decryption.
! The first use of the term cryptograph (as opposed to cryptogram) dates back to the 19th century - it originated in The Gold-Bug, a novel by Edgar Allan Poe.
Comments
Post a Comment