Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure
communication in the presence of third parties (called adversaries). More generally, it is about
constructing and analyzing protocols that overcome the influence of adversaries and which are related
to various aspects in information security such as data confidentiality, data integrity , authentication, and
non-repudiation . Modern cryptography intersects the disciplines of mathematics , computer science , and
electrical engineering. Applications of cryptography include ATM cards , computer passwords, and electronic
commerce .
Cryptography prior to the modern age was effectively synonymous with encryption , the conversion of
information from a readable state to apparent nonsense . The originator of an encrypted message shared
the decoding technique needed to recover the original information only with intended recipients, thereby
precluding unwanted persons to do the same. Since World War I and the advent of the computer, the
methods used to carry out cryptology have become increasingly complex and its application more
widespread.
Modern cryptography is heavily based on mathematical theory and computer science practice;
cryptographic algorithms are designed around computational hardness assumptions , making such
algorithms hard to break in practice by any adversary. It is theoretically possible to break such a system,
but it is infeasible to do so by any known practical means. These schemes are therefore termed
computationally secure; theoretical advances, e.g., improvements in integer factorization algorithms, and
faster computing technology require these solutions to be continually adapted. There exist information-
theoretically secure schemes that provably cannot be broken even with unlimited computing power—an
example is the one-time pad —but these schemes are more difficult to implement than the best
theoretically breakable but computationally secure mechanisms.
Cryptology-related technology has raised a number of legal issues. In the United Kingdom, additions to the
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 require a suspected criminal to hand over his or her
decryption key if asked by law enforcement. Otherwise the user will face a criminal charge. The
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was involved in a case in the United States which questioned whether
requiring suspected criminals to provide their decryption keys to law enforcement is unconstitutional. The
EFF argued that this is a violation of the right of not being forced to incriminate oneself, as given in the
fifth amendment.
Terminology:
Until modern times cryptography referred almost exclusively to encryption , which is the process of
converting ordinary information (called plaintext ) into unintelligible text (called ciphertext). Decryption is
the reverse, in other words, moving from the unintelligible ciphertext back to plaintext. A cipher (or cypher)
is a pair of algorithms that create the encryption and the reversing decryption. The detailed operation of a
cipher is controlled both by the algorithm and in each instance by a " key". This is a secret (ideally known
only to the communicants), usually a short string of characters, which is needed to decrypt the ciphertext.
A " cryptosystem" is the ordered list of elements of finite possible plaintexts, finite possible cyphertexts,
finite possible keys, and the encryption and decryption algorithms which correspond to each key. Keys are
important, as ciphers without variable keys can be trivially broken with only the knowledge of the cipher
used and are therefore useless (or even counter-productive) for most purposes. Historically, ciphers were
often used directly for encryption or decryption without additional procedures such as authentication or
integrity checks.
In colloquial use, the term " code " is often used to mean any method of encryption or concealment of
meaning. However, in cryptography, code has a more specific meaning. It means the replacement of a unit
of plaintext (i.e., a meaningful word or phrase) with a code word (for example, wallaby replaces attack at
dawn). Codes are no longer used in serious cryptography—except incidentally for such things as unit
designations (e.g., Bronco Flight or Operation Overlord)—since properly chosen ciphers are both more
practical and more secure than even the best codes and also are better adapted to computers .
Cryptanalysis is the term used for the study of methods for obtaining the meaning of encrypted
information without access to the key normally required to do so; i.e., it is the study of how to crack
encryption algorithms or their implementations.
Some use the terms cryptography and cryptology interchangeably in English, while others (including US
military practice generally) use cryptography to refer specifically to the use and practice of cryptographic
techniques and cryptology to refer to the combined study of cryptography and cryptanalysis. English
is more flexible than several other languages in which cryptology (done by cryptologists) is always used in
the second sense above. In the English Wikipedia the general term used for the entire field is cryptography
(done by cryptographers). RFC 2828 advises that steganography is sometimes included in
cryptology.
The study of characteristics of languages which have some application in cryptography (or
cryptology), i.e. frequency data, letter combinations, universal patterns, etc., is called cryptolinguistics.
