Encryption - How Secure Do You Want It?

History of Encryption

In its earliest form, people have been attempting to conceal certain information that they wanted to keep to their own possession by substituting parts of the information with symbols, numbers and pictures.

Ancient Babylonian merchants used intaglio, a piece of flat stone carved into a collage of images and some writing to identify themselves in trading transactions. Using this mechanism, they are producing what today we know as 'digital signature.' The public knew that a particular 'signature' belonged to this trader, but only he had the intaglio to produce that signature.

Of course, technology today has evolved at such rapid pace that the need to protect information grows with the lessening reliability of older encryption techniques. Basic modern encryption is not much different from the ancient civilizations' substitution using symbols. Translation table, lends itself very well in making a piece of data generally unreadable. However computers today are much too advanced that translation table is easily broken and thus no longer viable. Instead encryption today has grown into such specialized field that involve mathematical, non-linear cryptosystem that even a relatively powerful computers take months or even years to break the ciphertext.


Encryption Related Topics

     Encryption Home

     What exactly is encryption and how does it work?

     Confused about some of these terms? Try the Glossary

 

Encryption Related Links

     Cryptography Links

     Computer Security Links (opens in a new window)

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Sources
http://library.thinkquest.org/27158/history.html?tqskip1=1&tqtime=1121
http://www.learnthenet.com/english/glossary/encrypt.htm