Fields
Cryptography
Also Known As Crypto
Field of Study
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Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adversaries. The craft is ancient, but its modern era belongs to computing: Claude Shannon's papers of 1948 and 1949 gave it a mathematical basis, and cryptographic algorithms are now designed around computational hardness assumptions, so that breaking them is a computing problem nobody knows how to solve efficiently.
Facts
Disputed
Origin YearCryptography as a practice is ancient, but its treatment as a computational academic field is usually dated to the 1970s: the Data Encryption Standard effort of the early 1970s and the 1976 Diffie-Hellman publication that opened public key cryptography, so the origin year depends on whether the ancient practice or the modern computational field is being dated. Core ConcernHow information is kept confidential and authentic against adversaries, using algorithms whose security rests on problems believed computationally hard. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
His 1948 information theory paper and especially his 1949 cryptography paper laid the foundations of modern cryptography.
Claude Shannon, Pioneers Claude Shannon's 1949 paper Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems put cryptography on a rigorous mathematical footing for the first time, founding the field's modern theoretical basis.
Includes
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Cryptography
Wikimedia FoundationIntroduction and Modern cryptography sectionsQuote, Introduction and Modern cryptography sections
Cryptography, or cryptology, is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adversarial behavior.
1. Wikipedia: Cryptography
Wikimedia FoundationModern cryptography sectionQuote, Modern cryptography section
Modern cryptography is heavily based on mathematical theory and computer science practice; cryptographic algorithms are designed around computational hardness assumptions.
1. Wikipedia: Cryptography
Wikimedia FoundationEarly computer-era cryptographyQuote, Early computer-era cryptography
In the early 1970s IBM personnel designed the Data Encryption Standard (DES) algorithm that became the first federal government cryptography standard in the United States.
1. Wikipedia: Cryptography
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Information Security, Lead sectionQuote, Associated With: Information Security, Lead section
Core concepts related to information security (data confidentiality, data integrity, authentication and non-repudiation) are also central to cryptography.
The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution
Walter Isaacson, Simon and Schuster, 2014Associated With: Claude Shannon
Wikipedia: Bombe
Wikipedia: Quantum computing
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Quantum Computing, Lead sectionQuote, Associated With: Quantum Computing, Lead section
A large-scale quantum computer could break widely used encryption schemes and aid physicists in performing physical simulations.
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