cryptography

n. writing or deciphering of secret codes

Cryptography (or cryptology; derived from Greek κρυπτός kryptós "hidden," and the verb γράφω gráfo "write" or λεγειν legein "to speak") is the practice and study of hiding information. In modern times, cryptography is considered to be a branch of both mathematics and computer science, and is affiliated closely with information theory, computer security, and engineering. Cryptography is used in applications present in technologically advanced societies; examples include the security of ATM cards, computer passwords, and electronic commerce, which all depend on cryptography.
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(n.)
The act or art of writing in secret characters; also, secret characters, or cipher.
  

1. [The] principles, means, and methods for rendering plain information unintelligible and for restoring encrypted information to intelligible form. [NIS] 2. The branch of cryptology that treats of the principles, means, and methods of designing and using cryptosystems.

Digital Signature Standard Keyed-Hashing Message Authentication SYSKEY Public Key Infrastructure trap-door function Clipper decryption Enigma encryption cryptography Certificate Authority plaintext RC4 RSA RSA Data Security, Inc. RSA encryption SkipJack symmetric key cryptography cryppie one-way function System Account Manager public-key encryption Public-Key Cryptography Standards International Data Encryption Algorithm CAPI digital signature ciphertext synchronous key encryption digital envelope private-key cryptography brute force attack Advanced Encryption Standard Diffie-Hellman triple DES Pretty Good Privacy 

<cryptography> The practise and study of encryption and decryption - encoding data so that it can only be decoded by specific individuals. A system for encrypting and decrypting data is a cryptosystem. These usually involve an algorithm for combining the original data ("plaintext") with one or more "keys" - numbers or strings of characters known only to the sender and/or recipient. The resulting output is known as "ciphertext".
The security of a cryptosystem usually depends on the secrecy of (some of) the keys rather than with the supposed secrecy of the algorithm. A strong cryptosystem has a large range of possible keys so that it is not possible to just try all possible keys (a "brute force" approach). A strong cryptosystem will produce ciphertext which appears random to all standard statistical tests. A strong cryptosystem will resist all known previous methods for breaking codes ("cryptanalysis").
See also cryptology, public-key encryption, RSA.
Usenet newsgroups: news:sci.crypt, news:sci.crypt.research.
FAQ MIT.
Cryptography glossary.
RSA cryptography glossary.
Cryptography, PGP, and Your Privacy.
(2000-01-16)