Unlocking the Secrets of Crypto: Cryptography, Encryption, and Cryptology Explained

Encryption, decryption and code breaking came into the public consciousness in the 1980s with popularity of the movie War Games. It became newsworthy in the 1990s with the legal battles surrounding PGP and the political discussion of the Clipper Chip. Now, with information security becoming more and more of a common concern, the terms encryption, cryptography and cryptology - commonly grouped together under the term "crypto" - are seeping into our daily language. Still, many people are unsure of what these terms refer to. The purpose of this article is to demystify crypto and break it down to simple tools that aid us in achieving satisfactory privacy and security.

SearchSecurity.com defines cryptography as the "science of information security", which is achieved "by processing data (generally referred to as plaintext) into unintelligible form (ciphertext), reversibly, without data loss." Cryptology is the mathematical science and theory that underlies crypto, while encryption is the actual process by which one applies cryptographic science, a form of encoding. The important concept to understand is that crypto is the application of mathematical algorithms to convert text into a form that is unintelligible to unauthorized viewers.

According to Garfinkel and Spafford's Practical UNIX and Internet Security, cryptography was used as a tactical measure as early as ancient Greece. Spartan generals exchanged secret messages on "ribbons of parchment that were bound spirally around a cylindrical staff." The receiver placed the received parchment on an identical staff in order to decipher its message.

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