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  Report: Cryptography

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 WORLD-INFOSTRUCTURE > CRYPTOGRAPHY > SOME ESSENTIAL DEFINITIONS
  some essential definitions


some essential definitions in the field of cryptography are:
- cryptoanalysis
- cryptology
- ciphers

"Few false ideas have more firmly gripped the minds of so many intelligent men than the one that, if they just tried, they could invent a cipher that no one could break." (David Kahn)

codes
plaintext
ciphertext
to encipher/encode
to decipher/decode

The variants of encryption systems are endless.
For deciphering there exists always the same game of trial and error (first guessing the encryption method, then the code). A help to do so is pruning. Once, after a more or less long or short period a code/cipher breaks. Monoalphabetic ciphers can be broken easily and of course are no longer used today but for games.

for further information on codes and ciphers etc. see:
http://www.optonline.com/comptons/ceo/01004A.html
http://www.ridex.co.uk/cryptology/#_Toc439908851




browse Report:
Cryptography
    Abstract
 ...
-3   Timeline 1970-2000 AD
-2   Cryptography's Terms and background
-1   So what does cryptography mean?
0   some essential definitions
+1   Key-Systems
+2   Asymmetric or Public-Key-Cryptosystems
+3   Steganography
     ...
Epilogue
 INDEX CARD     RESEARCH MATRIX 
cryptology
also called "the study of code". It includes both, cryptography and cryptoanalysis