Cipher
In cryptography, the cipher is used for establishing secure communication. Cipher is heavily used in the military, politics, or even in daily life. The first cipher device has its origins in Ancient Greece. There are steps for the process of ciphering a message.
Steps and The Types of The Cipher
The first sender transforms the message into ciphertext. The original text is called the plaintext. Then the receiver uses a “key” to decrypt the ciphertext and read the actual message.
Early ciphers which use the paper-pen technique to cipher the original messages are called classical ciphers.
There are two types of classical ciphers which are:
- Substitution cipher: The characters and numbers are replaced with other characters and numbers in this technique. However, their position in the cipher is the same.
- Transposition cipher: This technique uses the changing positions of the characters and numbers. Opposite to the substitution cipher in this technique, the characters and numbers are not replaced in the cipher.
There are also two types of cipher depending on encryption and decryption: symmetric and asymmetric cipher.
There is only one key in asymmetric cipher to operate both encryption and decryption. However, asymmetric cipher uses different keys for both of these operations.
Important points for strong ciphertext
- The message that transformed cipher should not be understandable without the key.
- Use layers of cipher to make sure that it is protected.
- It is critical to protect the key of the cipher.
- Use long and a new cipher to decide to protect the plaintext.
New technologies for the cipher
Starting with the enigma machine using electronic or mechanical tools for cipher improves the security of the message. Some of the encryption using the computation power become so advanced that they can only be decrypted with a powerful computer.
Ciphers’ role in the cryptocurrencies
Cryptocurrencies use cipher and many more tools from cryptography to provide security and anonymity for their users.
