Understanding Encryption

Anand Venkatnarayan, Cybersecurity Expert

History of Encryption – Is it a modern concept. No. It goes back to the State of Sparta – They used to have –
Skytail (Write the message horizontally and written on a piece of paper, then it is written vertically and
transmitted).

Encryption as a Military Technology by Julias Caesar – Substitution Cipher – You map the letter A=C and C=Z

Steganography (Hidden in Plain sight) – Either coded on your arm or head like a tattoo as used by the Italian
Mafia

Encryption in Politics: Ever since computer encryption was brought in – Encryption was once classified as
ammunition as it had military use. Encryption technology was not given out to other countries (Eg. USA)

We should have allowed the government to allow encryption as ammunition and then invoke our 2 nd Amendment
to be able to use encryption.

Cypherpunk’s Manifeso – founders of the cypherpunk movement, Timothy C. May (The original anarchist) –
Freedom of expression requires complete anarchy – Cryptography backed currencies – Dark Web.

Crypto War 1 – between USA and cryptographers – You must not encrypt and the Final Battle (Crypto War) –
Clipper Chip – In 1993 NDA wanted every cell phone an telephone device to be surveilled – This Chip was
installed – If the government says do this – then be skeptical of that – However, we will keep the CryptoKey is
an escrow. Use case of the chip – National security and terrorist.

Skipjack (Back-door) is a block cipher—an algorithm for encryption—developed by the U.S. National Security
Agency (NSA) – Cypherpunks broke it. Resulting in a stalemate of Cryptowar – the idea of encryption as
ammunition was dead.

Pretty Good Privacy is an encry`ption program that provides cryptographic privacy and authentication for data
communication. PGP is used for signing, encrypting, and decrypting texts, e-mails, files, directories, and whole
disk partitions and to increase the security of e-mail communications

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) – Pay money to engage in surveillance using the services of service
providors in the name of cybersecurity

Sale deed – As a company I want to insure – Third Party

Hashing – Initially used for CD – ROMS. There is a message and you apply a mathematical function to create a
fixed (fix it size) 30 bite output. A small change in the input will create a big change in the output (Avalanche)

Gunjan, CCG

Encryption is at the center of privacy and security and hence, it become important to understand what is
encryption and kinds of encryption.