🛡What is Cryptography?🛡
🌀Cryptography is the study and application of techniques that hide the real meaning of information by transforming it into nonhuman readable formats and vice versa.
🌀Let’s illustrate this with the aid of an example. Suppose you want to send the message “I LOVE APPLES”, you can replace every letter in the phrase with the third successive letter in the alphabet. The encrypted message will be “K NQXG CRRNGV”. To decrypt our message, we will have to go back three letters in the alphabet using the letter that we want to decrypt. The image below shows how the transformation is done.
🌀The process of transforming information into nonhuman readable form is called encryption.
🌀The process of reversing encryption is called decryption.
🌀Decryption is done using a secret key which is only known to the legitimate recipients of the information. The key is used to decrypt the hidden messages. This makes the communication secure because even if the attacker manages to get the information, it will not make sense to them.
🌀The encrypted information is known as a cipher.
