Cryptography: The Complete History

Before the modern era, cryptography was concerned solely with message confidentiality: (encryption) conversion of a message from a comprehensible form into an incomprehensible one and back again (decryption) at the other end, rendering it unreadable by interceptors or eavesdroppers without secret knowledge (namely the key needed for decryption of that message). Encryption was used to attempt to ensure secrecy in communications, such as those of spies, military leaders and diplomats. In recent decades, the field has expanded beyond confidentiality concerns to include techniques for message integrity checking, sender/receiver identity authentication, digital signatures, interactive proofs, digital rights management and secure computation, among others. This book takes you through the history of Cryptography and all of its permutations, from classic to modern. It outlines the major symmetric key algorithms and public key systems, describes hash functions and key management, and explains the intricacies of cryptanalysis. All of the historically important cipher machines are described, from Enigma to the current NSA systems. Applications of cryptography are also detailed, from the earliest Egyptian methods carved in stone to modern voice encryption and Digital Rights Management. This is a WikiBits book - a compilation of related copyright-free Wikipedia articles and listings that have been crafted into a physical book that you can take with you.