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Vigenère and the Age of Polyalphabetic Ciphers

Posted on April 20, 2020 Written by The Cthaeh Leave a Comment

Cryptography, historical series, part 3 (Vigenère portrait in the background)

In this week’s post, I’m going to introduce you to the world of polyalphabetic substitution ciphers. And to the most famous cipher from this category: the Vigenère cipher.

This post is part of my series Cryptography: Historical Intro & Combinatoric Analysis.

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Filed Under: Combinatorics, Cryptography & Cryptanalysis Tagged With: Cipher, History

The Column and Caesar Ciphers: Ancient Cryptography

Posted on April 13, 2020 Written by The Cthaeh Leave a Comment

Cryptography, historical series, part 2 (Roman and Spartan statues in the background)

Today, I’m going to introduce two ciphers from the dawn of cryptography: the column cipher and the Caesar cipher. These ciphers illustrate some of the first human ideas in the direction of cryptographic thought.

This post is part of my series Cryptography: Historical Intro & Combinatoric Analysis.

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Filed Under: Combinatorics, Cryptography & Cryptanalysis Tagged With: Cipher, History

Cryptography: Historical Introduction & Combinatoric Analysis (Series)

Posted on April 6, 2020 Written by The Cthaeh Leave a Comment

Cryptography, historical series, part 1 (the Kryptos sculpture in the background)

Hi everyone, and welcome to my series on cryptography!

Initially, I started writing this as a single post, but as I was planning what I wanted to include, and seeing how long it would become, I decided it’s best to split it into separate posts.

Cryptography is the study of techniques and procedures, such as using codes and ciphers, for secure (secret) communication between two or more agents. More specifically, it deals with finding sophisticated ways of hiding the true content of messages exchanged between communicators. People use cryptography in military and diplomatic communication, password protection, securing online transactions, as well as in any other context where some secret information needs to be protected from being accessed or understood.

As you’ll see in future posts, probability theory too can play an important role in cryptography.

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Filed Under: Combinatorics, Cryptography & Cryptanalysis Tagged With: Cipher, Code, History

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