A Closer Look At Cryptography Essay -- Writing Cryptography History Pa

A Closer Look At CryptographyEver since the earliest days of writing, people have had reasons to define their information to a restricted group of people. Because of this, these people have had to puzzle ideas of making their information unable to be read by unsought people. The general techniques used to hide the importation of messages constitute the study cognize as cryptography. Ciphers, in general fall into three major classifications 1. secrecy Cipher, 2. Transposition Cipher, and 3. Substitution Cipher (4). Cryptography protects information by fixture its form, making it unreadable to unwanted people or groups of people.Cryptography, from the Greek kryptos, meaning hidden, and graphei, meaning to write. The origins of secret writing can be traced back near four millennia to the hieroglyphic writing system of the Egyptians. References to cryptography are as well made in the bible.One of the oldest known examples is the Spartan scytale Plutarch tells how Lacedaemonian g enerals exchanged messages by winding narrow ribbons of parchment spirally around a cylindric staff. The message was then inscribed on the parchment. When the ribbon was unwound, the writing could be read only by the person who had a cylinder of precisely the same size, upon which to rewind it, so that the letters would reappear in their normal score (5).During the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, interest in cryptography was very high. It was the springer in those days for important people, such as Mary of Stuart, the Charles I and II, and the Georges, to have private ciphers. During the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, cryptology played a major role in the military, especially in WWI and WWII, because the sec... ...rom the National efficiency Supply to Fort Knox. This is a fairly similar situation to that of WWI and WWII, in that whoever has control of the other sides information, is in control of the war. I also think the challenge of trying t o break someone elses codes, a game of sorts, is very interesting.Works Cited1. History of the Enigma. Russell Schwager. 18 Nov. 1998. <www.ugrad.cs.jhu.edu/russell/classes/ secret/history.html (12/8/99).2. The History of the German Enigma. Lech Maziakowski. 4 Dec. 1997. <www.members.aol.com/nbrass/enigma.htm (12/8/99).3. RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adelman). Fred cantor and Frank Rundatz.4 Dec. 1999. < http//www.whatis.com/rsa.htm (12/ 10/99).4. Gaines, Helen Fouche. Crytanalysis. New York Dover, 1956.5. Smith, Laurence Dwight. Cryptography. New York Dover, 1955.6. Peer reader Adam Fackler