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Classical Cryptography

This document provides an overview of classical cryptography. It describes the basic goal of cryptography which is to allow two parties, Alice and Bob, to communicate over an insecure channel so an opponent Oscar cannot understand their messages. It explains that Alice encrypts her plaintext message x using a secret key K to create ciphertext y which is sent to Bob, who decrypts it using the same key to retrieve the original message. It also defines the basic components of a cryptosystem including the sets of plaintexts, ciphertexts and keys, as well as the encryption and decryption rules that must have certain properties like being one-to-one mappings.

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kotakungu
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33 views

Classical Cryptography

This document provides an overview of classical cryptography. It describes the basic goal of cryptography which is to allow two parties, Alice and Bob, to communicate over an insecure channel so an opponent Oscar cannot understand their messages. It explains that Alice encrypts her plaintext message x using a secret key K to create ciphertext y which is sent to Bob, who decrypts it using the same key to retrieve the original message. It also defines the basic components of a cryptosystem including the sets of plaintexts, ciphertexts and keys, as well as the encryption and decryption rules that must have certain properties like being one-to-one mappings.

Uploaded by

kotakungu
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Chapter 2

Classical cryptography
Much of the material below is based on Chapter 1 of Cryptography: theory and
practice by Douglas R. Stinson.

2.1 The basic idea


The aim of cryptography is to enable two people, often called Alice and Bob, to
communicate over an insecure channel so that an opponent Oscar cannot
understand their messages.

These days the channel might be a telephone line, or a computer network. However
cryptography has a long history. In the past the channel may have been a published
book or a newspaper article (and the `opponent' would have been an ordinary
reader), or the channel may have been a soldier carrying a concealed message with
the opponent being the enemy army. Examples can be found in any introduction to
cryptography, for example in the Code Book (see recommended reading), or in

Bill Cherowitzo's notes at the University of Colorado.

We call Alice's message plaintext. Let's say her message is x. Alice encrypts
the message by applying one of a set of rules. The rule e K used depends on her
choice of a secret key K. The encrypted message y=eK(x), which we call
ciphertext, is sent over the insecure channel to Bob. Separately, by a secure
channel Alice sends Bob her secret key K, which he will need to decipher Alice's
message. When Bob receives the encrypted message y he decrypts the message
by applying the decryption rule dK corresponding to the key K and retrieves Alice's
plain text message x=dK(y). Meanwhile the opponent Oscar has intercepted the
ciphertext y, but (ideally) without knowledge of the key K he is unable to
understand it.

2.2 A simple cryptosystem


P set of all possible plaintexts
C set of all possible ciphertexts
K set of all possible keys
For each key K ∈ K, there corresponds an encryption rule eK:P→C and a
decryption rule dK:C→P. The rules eK and dK must have the properties listed in
Table 2.1.
Property Reason
eK must be one-to-one if y=eK(x1)=eK(x2) with x1 ≠ x2 then Bob

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