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Chapters Curriculum Guides Appendices

8. Coding - Encryption

Introduction

Encryption is used to keep data secret. In its simplest form, a file or data transmission is garbled so that only authorised people with a secret key can unlock the original text. If you're using digital devices then you'll be using systems based on encryption all the time: when you use online banking, when you access data through wifi, when you pay for something with a credit card (either by swiping, inserting or tapping), in fact, nearly every activity will involve layers of encryption. Without encryption, your information would be wide open to the world – anyone could pull up outside a house and read all the data going over your wifi, and stolen laptops, hard disks and SIM cards would yield all sorts of information about you – so encryption is critical to make computer systems usable.

Next:
What's the big picture?

Chapter sections

  • 8.1. What's the big picture?
  • 8.2. Substitution ciphers
  • 8.3. Cryptosystems used in practice
  • 8.4. The key distribution problem
  • 8.5. Storing passwords securely
  • 8.6. The whole story!
  • 8.7. Further reading

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