Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Details of the Encryption Scheme
The design of a cryptosystem is based on the following two cryptography algorithms − In case of proprietary algorithms, security is ensured through obscurity. Private algorithms may not be the strongest algorithms as they are developed in-house and may not be extensively investigated for weakness. Secondly, they allow communication among closed group only. Hence they…
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Active Attacks
An active attack involves changing the information in some way by conducting some process on the information. For example, Cryptography provides many tools and techniques for implementing cryptosystems capable of preventing most of the attacks described above. Assumptions of Attacker Let us see the prevailing environment around cryptosystems followed by the types of attacks employed…
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Attacks On Cryptosystems
In the present era, not only business but almost all the aspects of human life are driven by information. Hence, it has become imperative to protect useful information from malicious activities such as attacks. Let us consider the types of attacks to which information is typically subjected to. Attacks are typically categorized based on the…
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Challenge of Public Key Cryptosystem
Public-key cryptosystems have one significant challenge − the user needs to trust that the public key that he is using in communications with a person really is the public key of that person and has not been spoofed by a malicious third party. This is usually accomplished through a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) consisting a…
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Challenge of Symmetric Key Cryptosystem
There are two restrictive challenges of employing symmetric key cryptography. These two challenges are highly restraining for modern day communication. Today, people need to exchange information with non-familiar and non-trusted parties. For example, a communication between online seller and customer. These limitations of symmetric key encryption gave rise to asymmetric key encryption schemes. Asymmetric Key…
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Components of a Cryptosystem
The various components of a basic cryptosystem are as follows − For a given cryptosystem, a collection of all possible decryption keys is called a key space. An interceptor (an attacker) is an unauthorized entity who attempts to determine the plaintext. He can see the ciphertext and may know the decryption algorithm. He, however, must never know the…
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Cryptosystems
A cryptosystem is an implementation of cryptographic techniques and their accompanying infrastructure to provide information security services. A cryptosystem is also referred to as a cipher system. Let us discuss a simple model of a cryptosystem that provides confidentiality to the information being transmitted. This basic model is depicted in the illustration below − The illustration…
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Cryptography Primitives
Cryptography primitives are nothing but the tools and techniques in Cryptography that can be selectively used to provide a set of desired security services − The following table shows the primitives that can achieve a particular security service on their own. Note − Cryptographic primitives are intricately related and they are often combined to achieve a…
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Security Services of Cryptography
The primary objective of using cryptography is to provide the following four fundamental information security services. Let us now see the possible goals intended to be fulfilled by cryptography. Confidentiality Confidentiality is the fundamental security service provided by cryptography. It is a security service that keeps the information from an unauthorized person. It is sometimes…
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Context of Cryptography
Cryptology, the study of cryptosystems, can be subdivided into two branches − What is Cryptography? Cryptography is the art and science of making a cryptosystem that is capable of providing information security. Cryptography deals with the actual securing of digital data. It refers to the design of mechanisms based on mathematical algorithms that provide fundamental…
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