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

A Closer Look At steganographyEver since the earliest days of writing, people ware had reasons to limit their instruction to a restricted group of people. Because of this, these people have had to develop ideas of make their information unable to be realize by unwanted people. The full general techniques used to hide the sum of centres constitute the study known as cryptography. Ciphers, in general fall into three study classifications 1. Concealment Cipher, 2. transposition Cipher, and 3. Substitution Cipher (4). Cryptography protects information by altering its form, devising 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 nearly quadruple millennia to the hieroglyphic writing system of the Egyptians. References to cryptography are similarly do in the bible.One of the oldest known examples is the Spartan scytale Plutarch tells how L acedaemonian generals exchanged messages by tangled narrow ribbons of parchment spirally around a cylindrical 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 exactly the resembling size, upon which to rewind it, so that the letters would reappear in their normal order (5).During the sixteenth, 17th and eighteenth centuries, interest in cryptography was very high. It was the custom 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 Energy tack to Fort Knox. This is a fairly similar situation to that of WWI and WWII, in that whoever has overtop of the other sides information, is in control of the war. I also think the challenge of try ing to 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/enigma/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 Hazan and firedog 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 Reviewer fling Fackler