Human being from ages had two inherent needs − (a) to communicate and share information and (b) to communicate selectively. These two needs gave rise to the art of coding the messages in such a way that only the intended people could have access to the information. Unauthorized people could not extract any information, even if the scrambled messages fell in their hand.
The art and science of concealing the messages to introduce secrecy in information security is recognized as cryptography.
The word ‘cryptography’ was coined by combining two Greek words, ‘Krypto’ meaning hidden and ‘graphene’ meaning writing.
History of Cryptography
The art of cryptography is considered to be born along with the art of writing. As civilizations evolved, human beings got organized in tribes, groups, and kingdoms. This led to the emergence of ideas such as power, battles, supremacy, and politics. These ideas further fueled the natural need of people to communicate secretly with selective recipient which in turn ensured the continuous evolution of cryptography as well.
The roots of cryptography are found in Roman and Egyptian civilizations.
Leave a Reply