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The Alphabet Cipher
"The Alphabet Cipher" was a brief study published by Lewis Carroll in 1868, describing how to use the alphabet to send encrypted codes. It was one of four ciphers he invented between 1858 and 1868, and one of two polyalphabetic ciphers he devised during that period and used to write letters to his friends. It describes what is known as a Vigenère cipher, a well-known scheme in cryptography. While Carroll calls this cipher "unbreakable", Friedrich Kasiski had already published in 1863 a volume describing how to break such ciphers and Charles Babbage had secretly found ways to break polyalphabetic ciphers in the previous decade during the Crimean War. The piece begins with a tabula recta In cryptography, the ''tabula recta'' (from Latin language, Latin ''wikt:tabula#Latin, tabula wikt:rectus#Latin, rēcta'') is a square table of alphabets, each row of which is made by shifting the previous one to the left. The term was invented .... "The Alphabet-Cipher", Lewis Carroll, 1868 ...
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Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet, mathematician, photographer and reluctant Anglicanism, Anglican deacon. His most notable works are ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequel ''Through the Looking-Glass'' (1871). He was noted for his facility with word play, logic, and fantasy. His poems ''Jabberwocky'' (1871) and ''The Hunting of the Snark'' (1876) are classified in the genre of literary nonsense. Some of Alice's nonsensical wonderland logic reflects his published work on mathematical logic. Carroll came from a family of high-church Anglicanism, Anglicans, and pursued his clerical training at Christ Church, Oxford, where he lived for most of his life as a scholar, teacher and (necessarily for his academic fellowship at the time) Anglican deacon. Alice Liddell – a daughter of Henry Liddell, the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, Dean of Christ Church – is wide ...
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Vigenère Cipher
The Vigenère cipher () is a method of encryption, encrypting alphabetic text where each letter of the plaintext is encoded with a different Caesar cipher, whose increment is determined by the corresponding letter of another text, the key (cryptography), key. For example, if the plaintext is attacking tonight and the key is oculorhinolaryngology, then *the first letter of the plaintext, a, is shifted by 14 positions in the alphabet (because the first letter of the key, o, is the 14th letter of the alphabet, counting from zero), yielding o; *the second letter, t, is shifted by 2 (because the second letter of the key, c, is the 2nd letter of the alphabet, counting from zero) yielding v; *the third letter, t, is shifted by 20 (u), yielding n, with wrap-around; and so on. It is important to note that traditionally spaces and punctuation are removed prior to encryption and reintroduced afterwards. * In this example the tenth letter of the plaintext t is shifted by 14 position ...
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Cryptography
Cryptography, or cryptology (from "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logy, -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of Adversary (cryptography), adversarial behavior. More generally, cryptography is about constructing and analyzing Communication protocol, protocols that prevent third parties or the public from reading private messages. Modern cryptography exists at the intersection of the disciplines of mathematics, computer science, information security, electrical engineering, digital signal processing, physics, and others. Core concepts related to information security (confidentiality, data confidentiality, data integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation) are also central to cryptography. Practical applications of cryptography include electronic commerce, Smart card#EMV, chip-based payment cards, digital currencies, password, computer passwords, and military communications. ...
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Friedrich Kasiski
Major Friedrich Wilhelm Kasiski (29 November 1805 – 22 May 1881) was a German infantry officer, cryptographer and archeologist. Kasiski was born in Schlochau, Kingdom of Prussia (now Człuchów, Poland). Military service Kasiski enlisted in East Prussia's 33rd Infantry Regiment on 20 March 1823 at the age of 17. In May 1824, he was promoted to the rank of master sergeant, and eight months later was commissioned as a second lieutenant in February 1825. It took fourteen years to earn his next promotion when, in May 1839, he advanced to the rank of first lieutenant. His next advancement was quicker, promoted to captain in November 1842. Kasiski finally retired from active service with the rank of major on 17 February 1852. Between 1860 and 1868 he was the commander of a National Guard battalion. Cryptography In 1863, Kasiski published a 95-page book on cryptography, ''Die Geheimschriften und die Dechiffrir-Kunst'' (German, "Secret writing and the Art of Deciphering"). This wa ...
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Charles Babbage
Charles Babbage (; 26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) was an English polymath. A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer. Babbage is considered by some to be "List of pioneers in computer science, father of the computer". He is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer, the difference engine, that eventually led to more complex electronic designs, though all the essential ideas of modern computers are to be found in his analytical engine, programmed using a principle openly borrowed from the Jacquard loom. As part of his computer work, he also designed the first Printer (computing), computer printers. He had a broad range of interests in addition to his work on computers covered in his 1832 book ''Economy of Manufactures and Machinery''. He was an important figure in the social scene in London, and is credited with importing the "scientific soirée" from France with hi ...
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Polyalphabetic Cipher
A polyalphabetic cipher is a substitution cipher, substitution, using multiple substitution alphabets. The Vigenère cipher is probably the best-known example of a polyalphabetic cipher, though it is a simplified special case. The Enigma machine is more complex but is still fundamentally a polyalphabetic substitution cipher. History The work of Al-Qalqashandi (1355–1418), based on the earlier work of Ibn al-Durayhim (1312–1359), contained the first published discussion of the substitution and transposition of ciphers, as well as the first description of a polyalphabetic cipher, in which each plaintext letter is assigned more than one substitute. However, it has been claimed that polyalphabetic ciphers may have been developed by the Arab cryptologist Al Kindi (801–873) centuries earlier. The Alberti cipher by Leon Battista Alberti around 1467 was an early polyalphabetic cipher. Alberti used a mixed alphabet to encrypt a message, but whenever he wanted to, he would switch to a ...
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Crimean War
The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont from October 1853 to February 1856. Geopolitical causes of the war included the "Eastern question" (Decline and modernization of the Ottoman Empire, the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the "sick man of Europe"), expansion of Imperial Russia in the preceding Russo-Turkish wars, and the British and French preference to preserve the Ottoman Empire to maintain the European balance of power, balance of power in the Concert of Europe. The flashpoint was a dispute between France and Russia over the rights of Catholic Church, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church, Orthodox minorities in Palestine (region), Palestine. After the Sublime Porte refused Nicholas I of Russia, Tsar Nicholas I's demand that the Empire's Orthodox subjects were to be placed unde ...
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Tabula Recta
In cryptography, the ''tabula recta'' (from Latin language, Latin ''wikt:tabula#Latin, tabula wikt:rectus#Latin, rēcta'') is a square table of alphabets, each row of which is made by shifting the previous one to the left. The term was invented by the German author and monk Johannes TrithemiusSalomon, Data Privacy, page 63 in 1508, and used in his Trithemius cipher. Trithemius cipher The Trithemius cipher was published by Johannes Trithemius in his book ''Polygraphia (book), Polygraphia'', which is credited with being the first published printed work on cryptology. Trithemius used the ''tabula recta'' to define a polyalphabetic cipher, which was equivalent to Leon Battista Alberti's Alberti cipher disk, cipher disk except that the order of the letters in the target alphabet is not mixed. The ''tabula recta'' is often referred to in discussing pre-computer ciphers, including the Vigenère cipher and Blaise de Vigenère's less well-known autokey cipher. All polyalphabetic ciphe ...
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History Of Cryptography
Cryptography, the use of codes and ciphers, began thousands of years ago. Until recent decades, it has been the story of what might be called classical cryptography — that is, of methods of encryption that use pen and paper, or perhaps simple mechanical aids. In the early 20th century, the invention of complex mechanical and electromechanical machines, such as the Enigma rotor machine, provided more sophisticated and efficient means of encryption; and the subsequent introduction of electronics and computing has allowed elaborate schemes of still greater complexity, most of which are entirely unsuited to pen and paper. The development of cryptography has been paralleled by the development of cryptanalysis — the "breaking" of codes and ciphers. The discovery and application, early on, of frequency analysis to the reading of encrypted communications has, on occasion, altered the course of history. Thus the Zimmermann Telegram triggered the United States' entry into World War ...
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