Encryption and Cryptography

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Using Encryption a message in its original form (plaintext) is encrypted into

an unintelligible form (ciphertext) by a set of procedures known as an
encryption algorithm and a variable, called a key; and the ciphertext is
transformed (decrypted) back into plaintext using the encryption algorithm
and a key. Encryption forms the basis of many technological solutions to
computer and communications security problems.

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 Definitions - Crypto-speak
 Cryptography is the study of secret (crypto-)
writing (-graphy)
 Cryptography deals with all aspects of secure
messaging, authentication, digital signatures,
electronic money, and other applications
 The practitioner of Cryptography is called
Cryptographer

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Definitions

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 Why Cryptography?
 Concerned with developing algorithms which
may be used to:
 Conceal the context of some message from all
except the sender and recipient (privacy or secrecy),
and/or
 Verify the correctness of a message to the recipient
(authentication)
 Forms the basis of many technological solutions to
computer and communications security problems

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 Definitions
 In cryptographic terminology, the message is called plaintext or
cleartext.
 Encoding the contents of the message in such a way that hides its
contents from outsiders is called encryption.
 A method of encryption and decryption is called a cipher - The
name cipher originates from the Hebrew word "Saphar," meaning
"to number.”
 The encrypted message is called the ciphertext.
 The process of retrieving the plaintext from the ciphertext is
called decryption.
 Encryption and decryption usually make use of a key, and the
coding method is such that decryption can be performed only by
knowing the proper key.
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 Cryptography is
Mathematical
 Encryption C = EK(P)
 Decryption P = E -1(C)
K
 E is chosen from a family of transformations
K
known as a cryptographic system.
 The parameter that selects the individual
transformation is called the key K, selected
from a keyspace K

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 Cryptography is
Mathematical
 A cryptographic system is a single parameter
family of invertible transformations
 EK ; K in K : P  C
 with the inverse algorithm EK -1 ; K in K : C  P
 such that the inverse is unique
 Usually we assume the cryptographic system is
public, and only the key is secret information

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 Cryptanalaysis
 The study of principles and methods of
transforming an unintelligible message back
into an intelligible message without knowledge
of the key is called Cryptanalysis.
 Also called “code breaking” sometimes.
 Whereas people who do cryptography are
cryptographers, and practitioners of
cryptanalysis are cryptanalysts.

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 Cryptology
 Cryptology is the branch of mathematics that
studies the mathematical foundations of
cryptographic methods.
 Cryptology comes from the Greek words
Kryptos, meaning hidden, and Graphen,
meaning to write. Cryptology is actually the
study of codes and ciphers.
 Cryptology = both cryptography and
cryptanalysis
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 Algorithm Secrecy
 Some cryptographic methods rely on the secrecy
of the algorithms; such algorithms are only of
historical interest and are not adequate for real-
world needs.
 Kerchoff’s Principle: If the strength of your
new cryptosystems relies on the fact that the
attacker does not know the algorithm's inner
workings , you are sunk.
Security through Obscurity Does Not
Work !!!
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 The Key
 All modern algorithms use
a key to control encryption
and decryption; a message
can be decrypted only if
the key matches the
encryption key.
 The key used for
decryption can be different
from the encryption key,
but for most algorithms
they are the same.

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Encryption Algorithm Types
 There are two classes of key-based algorithms:
 Symmetric (or secret-key)
 Asymmetric (or public-key) algorithms
 The difference is that symmetric algorithms use the
same key for encryption and decryption (or the
decryption key is easily derived from the encryption
key), whereas asymmetric algorithms use a different
key for encryption and decryption, and the decryption
key cannot be derived from the encryption key.

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 Symmetric Algorithms
 Symmetric algorithms can be divided into two
categories: (1) stream ciphers and (2) block
ciphers.
 Stream ciphers can encrypt a single bit/byte of
plaintext at a time, whereas …
 Block ciphers take a number of bits (typically
64 /128 bits in modern ciphers), and encrypt
them as a single unit.

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 Asymmetric Algorithms
 Asymmetric ciphers (also called public-key
algorithms or generally public-key cryptography)
permit the encryption key to be public (it can
even be published in a newspaper), allowing
anyone to encrypt with the key, whereas only the
proper recipient (who knows the decryption key)
can decrypt the message.
 The encryption key is also called the Public Key
and the decryption key the Private Key or Secret
Key.
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 Comparison of Symmetric
and Asymmetric Encryption
Secret Key

Original
Plaintext Ciphertext Plaintext
Encryption Decryption

Symmetric (Single Key) Cryptography

Public Key Private Key

Original
Plaintext Ciphertext Plaintext
Encryption Decryption

Asymmetric (Two Key) Cryptography 15

 Types of Cryptographic
Algorithms
 Block – processes information to be encrypted in blocks
of 32/64/128 bits
 Stream – processes information one bit or one Byte at a
time
 Symmetric – uses same key for encryption and
decryption
 Asymmetric – uses one key for encryption and another
totally different key for decryption
 Secret Key – usually refers to single key algorithms
where the key must be kept secret
 Public Key – refers to asymmetric algorithms where
one of the keys is public and does not need to be kept
secret
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Crypto Algorithms are Time
Consuming
 Modern cryptographic algorithms cannot really
be executed by humans.
 Strong cryptographic algorithms are designed
to be executed by computers or specialized
hardware devices.
 In most applications, cryptography is done in
computer software, and numerous
cryptographic software packages are available.

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 Symmetric Algorithms are
Faster
 Generally, symmetric algorithms are much
faster to execute on a computer than
asymmetric ones.
 In practice they are often used together, so that
a public-key algorithm is used to encrypt a
randomly generated encryption key, and the
random key is used to encrypt the actual
message using a symmetric algorithm.

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Encryption Algorithms vs.
Other Encoding Algorithms
 Encryption vs. Error Detection/Correction.
 Encryption vs. Compression.

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 History - Caesar Cipher
 Julius Caesar used a simple alphabet (letter) substitution,
offset by 3 letters.
 Taking the word “cipher" you would move ahead in the
alphabet 3 letters to get “FLSKHU”.
 c = 3  3+3 = 6  F
 i = 9  9+3 = 12  L
 p = 16  16+3 = 19  S
 h = 8  8+3 = 11  K
 e = 5  5+3 = 8  H
 r = 18  18+3 = 21  U
 This worked for a while, until more people learned to read
and studied his secret cipher.
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 Concealment Messages
 Some of the more fun secret writings are
concealment messages like invisible inks made
out of potato juice, lemon juice, and other types
of juices and sugars!
 Deciphering and decoding messages take a lot
of time and be very frustrating. But with
experience, strategies, and most of all, luck,
you'll be able to crack lots of codes and ciphers.

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 Cryptography vs.
Steganography
 What is steganography?
 In an ideal world we would all be able to openly send
encrypted email or files to each other with no fear of
reprisals. However there are often cases when this is
not possible, either because you are working for a
company that does not allow encrypted email or
perhaps the local government does not approve of
encrypted communication (a reality in some parts of
the world). This is where steganography can come into
play.

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 Classical Cryptographic
Techniques
 Three Eras of Cryptography:
 Classical
 Traditional
 Modern
 We have two basic components of classical
ciphers: substitution and transposition.
 Substitution: In substitution ciphers letters are
replaced by other letters.
 Transposition: In transposition ciphers the
letters are arranged in a different order.
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 Monoalphabetic and
Polyalphabetic Ciphers
 Monoalphabetic - only one substitution/
transposition is used.
 Polyalphabetic - where several substitutions/
transpositions are used.
 Several such ciphers may be concatenated
together to form a Product Cipher.

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Caesar Cipher - A Monoalphabetic
Substitution Cipher
 Replace each letter of message by a letter a fixed distance
away e.g. use the 3rd letter on
 Reputedly used by Julius Caesar, e.g.
 L FDPH L VDZ L FRQTXHUHG
 I CAME I SAW I CONQUERED
 i.e. mapping is
 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
 DEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABC
 Can describe this cipher as:
 Encryption Ek : i  i + k mod 26
 Decryption Dk : i  i - k mod 26

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Caesar Cipher Key

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 A Simple (mono)
Substitution Cipher
Plaintext:
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

QIAYMWFUBKPDGJZSOCVLXNETRH
Ciphertext:
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 Frequency-based
Cryptanalytic Attacks
 Cryptanalyst knows the letter-frequency
distribution of the language.
 Cryptanalyst constructs the letter frequency
table of the cipher-text.
 Cryptanalyst tries to find letter pairs with the
same frequency distribution in the plain text and
cipher text.
 Also uses the frequencies of digrams and tri-
grams.
 Finally a little bit of trial and error.
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 Frequency Distribution of
Letters in Standard English
A 8.167 J 0.153 S 6.327
B 1.492 K 0.772 T 9.056
C 2.782 L 4.025 U 2.758
D 4.253 M 2.406 V 0.978
E 12.702 N 6.749 W 2.360
F 2.228 O 7.507 X 0.150
G 2.015 P 1.929 Y 1.974
H 6.094 Q 0.095 Z 0.074
I 6.966 R 5.987
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Polyalphabetic Substitution
Cipher
 Polyalphabetic Substitution - several
substitutions are used.
 Used to hide the statistics of the plain-text.

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 Polyalphabetic
Substitution Example
Suppose that a polyalphabetic cipher of period 3 is being used, with the three
monoalphabetic ciphers M1, M2, M3 as defined below. To encrypt a message, the
first 3 letters of the plaintext are enciphered according to ciphers M1, M2, M3
respectively, with the process being repeated for each subsequent block of 3 plaintext
letters.
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
M1: K D N H P A W X C Z I M Q J B Y E T U G V R F O S L
M2: P A G U K H J B Y D S O E M Q N W F Z I T C V L X R
M3: J M F Z R N L D O W G I A K E S U C Q V H Y X T P B
Plaintext
now is the time for every good man
Ciphertext
JQX CZ VXK VCER AQC PCRTX LBQZ QPK
Note:
The two o’s in good have been enciphered as different letters. Also the three letters
“X” in the ciphertext represent different letters in the plaintext. 31
 Transposition Ciphers
 Transposition or permutation ciphers hide the
message contents by rearranging the order of
the letters.
 Scytale Cipher is an example of a transposition
cipher.
 How does a cryptanalyst know that a
transposition cipher has been used?
 Single transposition vs. double transposition

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 Transposition Cipher
Example (1)
Key
M E G A B U C K
Weights to be used for double transposition
7 4 5 1 2 8 3 6
p l e a s e t r Plaintext
a n s f e r o n Please transfer one million dollars to my
e m i l l i o n swiss bank account six two two
d o l l a r s t
o m y s w i s s Ciphertext
b a n k a c c o AFLLSKSO SELAWAIA TOOSSCTC
LNMOMANT
u n t s i x t w
ESILYNTWRNNTSOWDPAEDOBUOERI
o t w o a b c d RICXB 33
 Transposition Cipher
Example (2)
Key S H O E S
Weights to be used for double transposition 1 3 5 4 2
p a y m e
Plaintext
b y s u n
paymebysundayorsuffertheconsequences
d a y o r
s u f f e

Ciphertext r t h e c
o n s e q
PBDSROUSENRECQEZAYAUTNE
ZMUOFEECZYSYFHSNZ u e n c e
s z z z z
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 Types of Encryption
Systems
 There are two types of encryption algorithms:
 Symmetric or Private Key systems
 Asymmetric or Public Key systems

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 Symmetric or Private Key
Systems
 A Private-Key (or secret-key, or single-key)
encryption algorithm is one where the sender and the
recipient share a common, or closely related, key.
 “Symmetric” means it uses the same key for
encryption as for decryption. As with all symmetric
ciphers, the sender must transmit the key to the
recipient via some secure and tamperproof channel,
otherwise the recipient won’t be able to decrypt the
ciphertext.
 All traditional encryption algorithms are private-key.

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 One Time Pad - OTP
 A one-time pad is a very simple yet completely
unbreakable symmetric cipher.
 A one-time pad involves sheets of paper with random
numbers on them: These numbers are used to transform
the message; each number or sequence of numbers is
used only once.
 The recipient of the message has an identical pad to use
to decrypt the message. One-time pads have been proven
to be foolproof-without having a copy of the pad.
 Supposedly, mathematicians can prove that a one-time
pad is impossible to break.

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 What is a One-Time Pad?
 The key for a one-time pad cipher is a string of
random bits, usually generated by a cryptographically
strong pseudo-random number generator (CSPRNG).
 It is better to generate the key using the natural
randomness of quantum mechanical events (such as
those detected by a Geiger counter), since quantum
events are believed by many to be the only source of
truly random information in the universe.
 One-time pads that use CSPRNGs are open to attacks
which attempt to compute part or all of the key.

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 What is a One-Time Pad?
 With a one-time pad, there are as many bits in
the key as in the plaintext.
 This is the primary drawback of a one-time pad,
but it is also the source of its perfect security.
 It is essential that no portion of the key ever be
reused for another encryption (hence the name
"one-time pad"), otherwise cryptanalysis can
break the cipher.

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 One Time Pad Algorithm
 The cipher itself is exceedingly
simple. To encrypt plaintext, P, with a
key, K, producing ciphertext, C,
simply compute the bitwise exclusive-
or of the key and the plaintext:
 C = K XOR P

P
To decrypt ciphertext, C, the recipient
+ C

computes
 P = K XOR C K
 It's that simple, and it’s perfectly
secure, as long as the key is random C + P
and is not compromised.
K
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 Why are One-Time Pads
Perfectly Secure?
 If the key is truly random, an xor-based one-
time pad is perfectly secure against ciphertext-
only cryptanalysis.
 This means an attacker can’t compute the
plaintext from the ciphertext without
knowledge of the key, even via a brute force
search of the space of all keys!
 Trying all possible keys doesn't help you at all,
because all possible plaintexts are equally
likely decryptions of the ciphertext.
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