Intro to Encryption

An anonymous reader submitted a Techworld story which is a sort of encryption primer. The difference between codes & cyphers, and what all those acronyms like RSA and DES actually mean. This is good primer material for newbs, and a good refresher for fogeys.

intro to encryption

[JavaLord]

svefg cbfg!

Difference betwen Codes and Cyphers?

[NardofDoom]

That's easy. Code is what I stare at all day, while Cypher is the jerk who betrayed Neo in The Matrix. Duh.

I read this book, this is what I thought

[Shut the fuck up!]

d6a6bc0db10694a2d90e3a69648f3a03 8a89706b1ce31bc803bfde8cee6587db 0f4b65803f78b51e8946d4506ae62473 b99b64cc909c4efcb609ad83fba84a55 719ffbccd1f60fabb76192606929585c

Safe encryption

[darkstream]

When I want to email with a new friend using PGP encryption, I send him my key one character at a time via snail mail using newspaper clippings. The only time this becomes a problem is when the post office laps itself and delivers more than one letter a day, or gets an earlier letter there later than a later letter, but it's the only way to be sure the key never falls into enemy hands. Of course, I don't get to email many people these days...

Sosumi, McCartney!

[Chris Tucker]

"When I find myself in times of trouble, PKZ he comes to me.
Speaking words of wisdom, 'PGP, PGP.'"

Re:Difference betwen Codes and Cyphers?

[Anonymous Coward]

It became predictably geeky. ;-)

Re:ROT13

[General Wesc]

Sometimes that's not good enough. In such instances, I always rot-13 it two times for twice the security.

Re:intro to encryption

[virid]

i hope you didn't actually need to chart that out...

Re:intro to encryption

[Anonymous Coward]

or the unix shell way: tr a-z n-za-l

Re:intro to encryption

[justforaday]

Nope...Double, or better yet, quadruple rot13 are the greatest...

Re:SETI noise

[saigon_from_europe]

1) Get 600MB of random noise data from listening for extra terrestrials from for instance SETI.

Don't do it!!! Simply, it's not safe. What if you take signal from some extraterestial inteligent species? That signal will not be completely random, and someone will be able to break it...

Re:640 bits should be enough for anybody

[lukewarmfusion]

"...and my porn passwords are Romeo and Juliet!"

Well my porn passwords are Juliet and Juliet. It's a lesser known work, to be sure, but it's certainly steamier.

isyay isthay ayay odecay?

[NewtonsLaw]

Iyay etbay obodyyay ancay igurefay histay utoay!

Uggerbay, hatway oday ouyay eanmay "veryeay oneyay owsknay igpay atlinlay?"

Re:intro to encryption

[Black Perl]

I use ROT26, myself.

A perfect prime-factorizing algorithm

[roystgnr]

If it were possible to factor any prime in one month

Any prime's factors are itself and one.
</smartass>