![]() The shortest words that frequently appear in a text also help break such codes: e.g., and, the, as, so. The Arab mathematician Al-Kindi looked at the frequency of letters in the encrypted message to determine the shifting rule. Although such shift ciphers are considered some of the simplest forms of encryption today, the Caesar Cipher was only cracked around 800 AD. The Caesar Cipher used the normal sequence of the alphabet but shifted letters to a fixed number of letters further down the alphabet (If A becomes E, then B becomes F). Julius Caesar’s legions used the above technique to much success. Thus, even if the messenger was captured, the content of the message remained undecipherable. Before computers, the security of encryption was ensured by keeping cipher keys with the sender and receiver. The first encryption was the substitution cipher which used a very simple method of replacing units (letters or groups of letters) with other units based on a set of substitution rules, e.g., A=N, B=O, etc. This was the first time the concept of a common key, seen even today in modern cryptographic technologies, was used for both encryption and decryption. Once the strip was wound off the cylinder, the text became unreadable unless the reader possessed an identical cylinder. A narrow strip of parchment was wound around the device, and the text was written along the length of the device. Spartan encryption used an invention called the scytale, which allowed secret messages to be sent and received. The first recorded instance of encryption being used for military purposes dates to around 500 BC. It was also used for religious reasons, for example, to discuss taboos. Ancient encryption in Egypt was used mainly to protect knowledge, as education was a privilege limited to the highest circles of society and was also a way to show one’s skills in writing. However, some unusual hieroglyphs were used that obscured the original meaning of the text. Nearly 4,000 years ago, the tomb of nobleman Khnumhotep II contained a script recording his deeds in life. The earliest written evidence of encryption can be traced to ancient Egypt. When was encryption invented, and by whom? Thus, in the Information Age, all communication is best encrypted, regardless of it being between humans, machines, or humans and machines. Since the 1980s, computers and the internet have increasingly come to dominate our lives. The next drastic changes came when secure commercial and private communication became a general necessity. The oldest known cryptography preserved religious or commercial knowledge and was then influenced by the need for secure military communication. The increasing value of knowledge, and in modern times, data, has spurred the evolution of cryptography. Encryption is only one component of cryptography, in which an original plaintext or data is transformed into a ciphertext that prevents malicious third parties from understanding its content. A brief history of cryptographyĬryptography is the science or study of techniques of secret writing and hiding messages in any medium. Let’s take a look at the history of encryption algorithms in order to understand their significance over time. ![]() Encryption is used mostly to handle transactions over insecure channels of communication, such as the internet. Today, encryption is used in everyday modern life, and in most cases, users are unaware of it. ![]() Encryption can be traced back to its religious use in ancient Egypt, and Greek and Roman military culture, to the World Wars and the creation of the first computer, to finally arrive at its modern use in the era of the World Wide Web. The timeline of the history of encryption is long. The need to hide messages and their meaning from prying eyes (that is, encrypting them) probably surfaced not long after humankind invented writing. ![]()
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