Cryptography

Definitions - Crypto-speak
Cryptography is the study of secret
(crypto-) writing (-graphy)
Cryptography deals with all aspects of
secure messaging, authentication, digital
signatures, electronic money, and other
applications
The practitioner of Cryptography is called
Cryptographer
Cryptology
Cryptology is the branch of mathematics
that studies the mathematical foundations
of cryptographic methods.
Cryptology comes from the Greek words
Kryptos, meaning hidden, and Graphen,
meaning to write. Cryptology is actually the
study of codes and ciphers.
Cryptology = both cryptography and
cryptanalysis
Definitions
Definitions
 In cryptographic terminology, the message is called plaintext or
cleartext.
 Encoding the contents of the message in such a way that hides its
contents from outsiders is called encryption.
 A method of encryption and decryption is called a cipher.
 The encrypted message is called the ciphertext.
 Intruder: The person who hears and copies down the complete
text.
 The process of retrieving the plaintext from the ciphertext is called
decryption.
 Encryption and decryption usually make use of a key, and the
coding method is such that decryption can be performed only by
knowing the proper key.
 Cryptography is Mathematical
 Itwill often be useful to have a notation for relating
plaintext, ciphertext, and keys.
 The plaintext, P is encrypted using the key k to produce
ciphertext C
◦ Encryption C = EK(P)
 The ciphertext C is decrypted to obtain the plain text.
◦ Decryption P = DK(C)
 Clearly it follows P = DK(EK(P))
 This notation suggests that E and D are just
mathematical functions, which they are. The only tricky
part is that both are functions of two parameters, and we
have written one of the parameters (the key) as a
subscript, rather than as an argument, to distinguish it
from the message.
 Classical Cryptographic Techniques
 Three Eras of Cryptography:
◦ Classical
◦ Traditional
◦ Modern
 We have two basic components of classical ciphers:
substitution and transposition.
 Substitution: In substitution ciphers letters are replaced
by other letters.
 Transposition: In transposition ciphers the letters are
arranged in a different order.
Monoalphabetic and Polyalphabetic Ciphers
Monoalphabetic - only one substitution/
transposition is used.
Polyalphabetic - where several
substitutions/ transpositions are used.
Several such ciphers may be concatenated
together to form a Product Cipher.
Caesar Cipher - A Monoalphabetic
Substitution Cipher
Replace each letter of message by a letter a fixed
distance away e.g. use the 3rd letter on
Reputedly used by Julius Caesar, e.g.
◦ L FDPH L VDZ L FRQTXHUHG
◦ I CAME I SAW I CONQUERED
i.e. mapping is
◦ ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
◦ DEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABC
Can describe this cipher as:
◦ Encryption Ek : i  i + k mod 26
◦ Decryption Dk : i  i - k mod 26
Polyalphabetic Substitution Cipher
Polyalphabetic Substitution - several
substitutions are used.
Used to hide the statistics of the plain-
text.
Polyalphabetic
Substitution Example
Suppose that a polyalphabetic cipher of period 3 is being used, with the three
monoalphabetic ciphers M1, M2, M3 as defined below. To encrypt a message, the
first 3 letters of the plaintext are enciphered according to ciphers M1, M2, M3
respectively, with the process being repeated for each subsequent block of 3 plaintext
letters.
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
M1: K D N H P A W X C Z I M Q J B Y E T U G V R F O S L
M2: P A G U K H J B Y D S O E M Q N W F Z I T C V L X R
M3: J M F Z R N L D O W G I A K E S U C Q V H Y X T P B
Plaintext
now is the time for every good man
Ciphertext
JCQ CZ VXK VCER AQC PCRTX LBQZ QPK
Note:
The two o’s in good have been enciphered as different letters. Also the three letters
“X” in the ciphertext represent different letters in the plaintext.
 Transposition Ciphers
Transposition or permutation ciphers hide
the message contents by rearranging the
order of the letters.
Scytale Cipher is an example of a
transposition cipher.
Transposition Cipher Example
Key S H O E S
Weights to be used for double transposition 1 3 5 4 2
p a y m e
Plaintext
b y s u n
paymebysundayorsufferthecons
d a y o r
equences
s u f f e

Ciphertext r t h e c
o n s e q
PBDSROUSENRECQEZAYAUT
NEZMUOFEECZYSYFHSNZ u e n c e
s z z z z
Cryptographic Techniques
Plain text
◦ Message in an understandable/readable form, same
as Clear text
Cipher text
◦ Result of encryption on a plain text message.
The Key
 All modern algorithms
use a key to control
encryption and
decryption; a message
can be decrypted only if
the key matches the
encryption key.
 The key used for
decryption can be
different from the
encryption key, but for
most algorithms they
are the same.
 Cryptographic Techniques
Symmetric key cryptography (classical)
◦ Cryptographic technique where the same key is used
for encryption and decryption operations.
◦ Substitution cipher
◦ Transposition cipher
◦ Product cipher
 substitution + transposition
Asymmetric Key Cryptography
◦ Cryptographic technique where a key pair is used for
encryption and decryption operations.
Symmetric key cryptography
 Symmetric Algorithms
◦ also known as secret key algorithm
◦ use single key on encrypt and decrypt
◦ usually hardware assisted
Asymmetric Key Cryptography
 Also known as public-key algorithms
◦ Pair of keys (i.e. private and public)
◦ Key management is relatively easy
◦ Computational intensive
◦ Slow (100 times slower than symmetric algorithms of similar strengths!!)
◦ Many new algorithms develop recently
Comparison of Symmetric and
Asymmetric Encryption
Secret Key

Original
Plaintext Ciphertext Plaintext
Encryption Decryption

Symmetric (Single Key) Cryptography

Original
Plaintext Ciphertext Plaintext
Encryption Decryption

Asymmetric (Two Key) Cryptography