The message is called the plaintext because it is the unchanged source information. Example: The cat ran away. The secret message generated is called a cipher or ciphertext and it is the encrypted ...

Introduction to ciphers and substitution. Alice and Bob and Carl and Julius: terminology and Caesar Cipher ; The key to the matter: generalizing the Caesar Cipher ; Multiplicative ciphers ; Affine ...

I hope you enjoyed Ed’s guest posts on NP-complete problems on TV the last couple of Mondays. It’s always great to hear from others on math that they are thinking about. This week it’s me again, and ...

Introduction If you need to send a secret message to a friend, how could you prevent other people from reading it? One way is to encrypt the message—that is, use a secret code that only you and your ...