Now this method only works if you have the proper key to stick in the lock, and your key will be valid only as long as you are the resident of the particular abode. This process (the use of a key and a lock) is the method or algorithm. The period or time during which the key is valid.īy way of analogy, to get into your home you would put a key in a lock to open the door.The key used with the algorithm to allow the plaintext to be both enciphered and deciphered.The algorithm or method used to encipher the original message (known as the plaintext).(I told you the difference was fuzzy, and you can combine codes and ciphers by substituting one word for another and then mixing up the result.) We'll concentrate on ciphers.įor a cipher to be useful, several things must be known at both the sending and receiving ends. When you mix up or substitute existing letters, you are using a cipher. When you substitute one word for another word or sentence, like using a foreign language dictionary, you are using a code.
SEMAPHOR CIPHER CODE
If you don't know Greek (and not many of us do) the above letters could be a form of code themselves! Although the distinction is fuzzy, ciphers are different from codes. The study of enciphering and encoding (on the sending end), and deciphering and decoding (on the receiving end) is called cryptography from the Greek κρυπτός (kryptos), or hidden and γράφειν (graphia), or writing. After all, you wouldn't want your competitor to know that you were about to acquire their company with a leveraged buy-out. Businesses also send data that has been encoded to try and protect trade secrets and back-room deals. In more serious uses, codes and ciphers are used by our military and diplomatic forces to keep confidential information from unauthorized eyes. If the note was intercepted, your teacher, could learn nothing about your romance. Or perhaps you remember using special symbols to write notes to your "squeeze" in class. When you were a kid, did you have a "Captain Midnight" decoder ring? With it, you could send messages to a friends that no one else could read.
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