Encryption: introduction and 3 important methods of cryptography

What is encryption? The word “Crypto” literally means hidden or hidden. The term “cryptography” means “secret writing”. Encryption allows excthawing messages that can only be read by the intended recipient. Depending on the design, cryptographic technology can guarantee complete anonymity or make this process difficult. Cryptography is used in buying Tether and moving it through a blockchain-based net transaction. Your transaction information is encrypted by a hash generated from that transaction, including a multi-character code. Cryptography is one of the most widely used technologies in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry, which we will discuss further.

The applications of enPixistslogy are extensive. The purposes include system services and The security of sections that occur in the network and are used to control the production of new currency units and in the verification stages of the transfer of assets and digital tokens. In the continuation of this article, we will introduce more applications of this technology, types of encryption techniques, their history, and the answer to the question “What is encryption” in general?

What is encryption?

Encryption is a method of protectiandmmuni. Thosecation through the use of codes so that only those for whom the above information is intended can access and process it. Let’s say yokeetoral Dogecoin crypto coins in TrustVault, and you want to cash them. To sell your dog coins, you can first create a user account in a centralized exchange and a receipt address to your wallet in that exchange, then place that address in the “Send” withdrawal section of dogecoin in the trust wallet. Finally, complete the steps transitions.

informationIn the above example, the complete information of your transaction, in the form of a transaction ID or TXID using cryptographic algorithms, is linked to your account in TrustVault and the desired exchange.

In computer science, cryptography refers to secure information and communication techniques derived from mathematical concepts and algorithm-based calculations. This aims to convert the messages into plaintext to make them difficult to access. These algorithms generate cryptographic keys and digital signatures and verify data privacy protection and confidential communications such as credit card transactions and emails.

History of cryptography and its use

The origin of cryptography dates back to about 2000 BC, when the Egyptians used hieroglyphics. Hieroglyphs are letters created by drawing pictures of animals and objects. Hieroglyphs consisted of complex pictograms whose whole meaning was understood only by an elite few.

One of the most straightforward and well-known cryptography techniques in its modern form is known as the “Caesar cipher” or “displacement cipher,” invented by Julius Caesar, a soldier and politician from the Roman Republic in the first century BC. Caesar distrusted messengers when communicating with his governors and officers, so he created a system in which each letter mentioned on the surface represented the third letter after it in the Roman alphabet.

Cryptography has become the battleground of some of the world’s best mathematicians and computer scientists in recent years. The ability to securely store and transmit sensitive information has proven essential to success in warfare and business. Since governments don’t want some entities inside and outside their country to have access to ways to receive and send secret information that may threaten national interests, encryption has been used in many countries under various restrictions.

However, the Internet has allowed the development of more powerful and vital applications in the techniques underlying cryptography, so today, many of the most advanced cryptographic systems and ideas are in the public domain.

What are the uses and purposes of encryption?

Cryptography is closely related to Cryptology and Cryptanalysis. This technology includes techniques such as Microdots that merge words with images and other methods of hiding information in storage or transmission. However, in today’s computer-centric world, cryptography is often associated with this set of activities: Encryption that involves concatenating plaintext (sometimes known as plaintext) into ciphertext and decrypting the ciphertext again. People who work in this field are also known as cryptographers.

Modern cryptography focuses on the following four goals:

1. Confidentiality: The information should not be understood by anyone who does not need it.

2. Integrity: The information cannot be changed in storage or transmission between the intended sender and receiver.

3. Non-repudiation: The creator (sender) of the information cannot deny his intention after the creation or transmission of the data.

4. Authentication: The sender and receiver can verify each other’s identity and the source and destination of the information.

Procedures and protocols that meet some or all of the above criteria are known as cryptographic systems. Cryptographic systems are thought to refer only to mathematical procedures and computer programs. However, these algorithms also regulate human behavior in cases such as Choosing unguessable passwords, not discussing sensitive procedures with others, etc.

Types of encryption: What are the different encryption techniques?

Cryptographic systems use cryptographic algorithms to encrypt and decrypt messages and secure communications between computer systems, devices, and programs. A cipher suite uses one algorithm for encryption, another for message authentication, and another for exchanging ciphers. Embedded in protocols and written as software programs, this process can run on different computer and network operating systems. The above method includes the following:

• Generating public and private key (code) to encrypt/decrypt data

• Digital signature and verification for message authentication

• Key replacement

What are the types of encryption?

Single-key or symmetric-key encryption algorithms create a fixed length of bits, known as a block cipher, that also includes a secret key that the creator or sender uses to encrypt data and the receiver uses to decrypt it. They use it. One example of encryption with a symmetric key algorithm is the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). AES is a system developed in November 2001 by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS 197) to protect sensitive information. The US government mandates this standard, which is widely used in the private sector.

In June 2003, AES was approved by the US government for classified information. Although this system has been implemented in many software and hardware worldwide, other algorithms, including Data Encryption Standard (DES) and DES3, replaced AES Because they use longer key lengths, 128, 192, and even 256 bits, to prevent attacks and more security.

A simple example of this method is to represent the letters of the alphabet with numbers. For example, if “01” represents the letter “A,” the number “02” represents the letter “B,” etc., a message such as “HELLO” with the code “0805121215” is encoded. This number is transferred to the receiver or receivers through the network. After receiving, the receiver uses the same reverse method; It decodes “08,” meaning H, the value “05,” representing E, and so on to get the value of the original HELLO message. Even if unauthorized users receive the encrypted message “0805121215”, it will be useless to them unless they know the encryption method.

Public-key or asymmetric-key encryption algorithms consist of a pair of keys: a public key associated with the originator/sender to encrypt messages and a private key known only to the originator (unless disclosed or decided to share) and is used to decrypt that information.

Examples of public key cryptography include:

• RSA, widely used in the Internet space

Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA), used in the Bitcoin system

• Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA), as a standard adopted by NIST for digital signatures in federal information processing (FIPS 186-4)

• Chahash functions are used in the Diffie-Hellman key

Additionally, hash functions maintain data integrity in cryptography that returns a definitive output from an input value. Types of cryptographic hash functions include SHA-1, SHA-2, and SHA-3. There are many ways to use cryptography in the world of digital currencies. For example, the Bitcoin network uses hash functions to ensure the security and immutability of its blockchain. This cryptocurrency’s blockchain provides a public key-based digital signature platform to allow users to transfer bitcoins without trust. In the following, we will go into more detail about this issue.

Encryption methods used in digital currencies

The first method of cryptography used in digital currencies is symmetric cryptography. This method is one of the simplest examples of encryption, but many complex changes have been made to increase security. This method offers the advantages of simple implementation with minimal throughput but suffers from shared vital security issues and scalability issues.

The second method that can be used in digital currencies is asymmetric encryption, which uses two different keys, public and private, to encrypt and decrypt data. The public key can be publicly published, such as the recipient address of a fund, while the private key is known only to the owner. In this method, one can encrypt a message using the recipient’s public key, But it can only be decrypted with the recipient’s private key.

This method helps achieve the two essential functions of authentication and encryption for digital currency transactions. The first function is performed when the public key verifies the corresponding private key for the actual sender of the message. In contrast, the second function is achieved because only the holder of the corresponding private key can successfully decrypt the encrypted message.

The third applied encryption method in the digital currency space is hashing, which is used to verify the integrity of network transaction data efficiently. While preserving the blockchain data structure, this method encrypts people’s account addresses and transactions between accounts and enables block mining. Additionally, digital signatures complement these cryptographic processes and allow participants to prove their identity to the network.

What is the use of cryptography in the Bitcoin blockchain?

The Bitcoin network and database itself do not use any encryption. Because its blockchain, as an open and distributed database, does not need to encrypt data. Data sent between Bitcoin nodes is not encrypted to allow strangers to interact through the cryptocurrency’s network. Of course, this issue does not disrupt the network’s activity and also brings transparency.

However, some Bitcoin services require more security and privacy. To securely store private keys, most Bitcoin wallets encrypt their data using a variety of cryptographic schemes. For example, Bitcoin Core encrypts its wallet using the advanced AES encryption standard. To decrypt the Kor Bitcoin wallet, the user must enter their password, which is the decryption key.

The hash function in Bitcoin is a cryptographically based system.

A cryptographic hash function is a mathematical function that takes data as input and produces an output with specific characteristics. There are many examples of hash functions, But all hash functions share a series of core properties that make hash functions useful not only for Bitcoin but for many digital systems. The output of a hash function, called hash for short, is a large number usually displayed as a string of letters and numbers in hexadecimal notation.

While the input of a hash function can be irregular and different, the output of a cryptographic hash function always has a specific length in terms of volume. The size of the production depends on the particular hash function used. For example, SHA-256, a member of the hash function family of secure encryption algorithms, always outputs 256 bits of data, regardless of how large or small the input is. The output of a cryptographic hash function is also deterministic, meaning that the same feedback given to the same hash function will always produce the same result. However, if a single character or byte of data is changed in the input, the new output will look nothing like the old output.

This feature is essential for tools based on a hash function, as it can speed up verifying an arbitrarily large data set. For example, if a user has a large file and wants to confirm that it has been tampered with, they can compare the hash of the file since the last time they proved it with the current hash of the file. If the file is unchanged, the two hashes match precisely. However, even the slightest change results in almost all hash characters being changed.

Finally, the output of a cryptographic hash function is a random and one-way function. This means the input cannot be formed predictably to obtain a desired output. In other words, output does not represent any information about the input, so output cannot be used to derive an input. This feature is helpful because the hash output can be used to commit to certain information without revealing that information. The randomness of hash functions also makes them useful for Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm.

The Bitcoin protocol mainly uses SHA-256 for all hashing operations. Most importantly, hashes are used to implement Bitcoin’s proof-of-work mechanism. Since hashing is random and unpredictable, finding a valid hash will only be possible through repeated guesswork.

The properties of hash functions also ensure the immutability of Bitcoin. A Merkel tree is built inside each block to calculate a hash of all transactions in the league. This ensures that every transaction is immutable once included in a partnership. In addition, each block guarantees the immutability of its previous blocks, which is done by having the last block’s hash in each block. As a result, once a block is added to the blockchain, it cannot be changed, guaranteeing the network’s immutability.

Cryptographic concerns

Various types of the above cryptographic methods with desired levels of customization can be implemented in multiple cryptocurrency networks and other industries. However, it should be noted that these algorithms have always caused some concerns, and we will introduce some of them below. However, encryption makes it more difficult for attackers to access messages and data protected by the algorithms of this technology. But attackers can bypass encryption, hack the computers responsible for encrypting and decrypting data, and exploit weak implementations such as using default keys.

There are growing concerns about the processing power of quantum computing to break current cryptographic standards. This even prompted NIST to call for papers in 2016 among the mathematics and science community to develop new and secure cryptographic standards.

Unlike today’s computer systems, quantum computing uses quantum bits, or qubits, that can represent both 0 and 1, thus performing two calculations simultaneously. According to NIST, although a large-scale quantum computer may not be built in the next decade, the existing infrastructure requires the standardization of well-known cryptographic algorithms that provide a more secure approach.

I have frequently asked questions about encryption technology.

What is encryption in plain language?

Encryption protects information and communication using codes so that only those for whom the data is intended can read and process that information.

What are the types of encryption algorithms?

Cryptographic techniques include confidentiality, integrity, non-repudiation, and authentication. Three types of cryptography are symmetric vital systems, asymmetric critical systems, and systems based on hash functions. DES, AES, RSA, and Diffie-Hellman key exchange are examples of encryption systems.

What is encryption in cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrencies use cryptography to allow transactions to be anonymous, secure, and “trustless,” meaning there is no need to trust any third party, such as a bank, credit card company, government, or other entity, to conduct personal transactions securely. not be

Is Bitcoin encrypted?

The Bitcoin network and database itself do not use any encryption. Because it is an open and distributed blockchain-based database, it does not need to encrypt data. Of course, the hash function used in the Bitcoin network itself is a technology based on cryptography.