Question 1

Isn't this used when paying over the internet?

Accepted Answer

Yes, safe internet purchases involve encryption.  When you buy something through an insecure network, though, encryption might not be used, therefore making it possible for someone to take your information.

Question 2

This seems really interesting but what grade do you learn this? (Im going into 7th.)

Accepted Answer

Hi Razeen, I wrote this series so that anyone could follow it. I'd say grade 5-6 and up :-) Let me know if you have questions along the way, there are lots of community members who can help you too! Just check out their questions.

Question 3

In 1:12 Brit talks about wars that were started and fueled by encryption. What wars might these be?

Accepted Answer

Wars were were often decided by encryption, for example watch the video on WW2 encryption machines. There were not 'started' by encryption...encryption is just another important weapon.

Question 4

Woah! That is sooooo cool! But do we use cryptography in daily life? Are there some examples about it?

Accepted Answer

Yes, Cryptography is used a lot in daily life. 
The login at the start of Khan Academy and many other sites use cryptography to encrypt ones login details. E-commerce sites also depend heavily on cryptography to protect the credit card details of the those using its services. 
Some search engines encrypt searched keywords to ensure privacy.

Question 5

Can't people make their own languages to communicate secretly. It is very much possible. Cryptography wont help there.

Accepted Answer

There are things like the Navajo Wind Talkers that do similar things.  However, modern code-breaking and linguistic analysis techniques can help still.  In similar ways, we sometimes find ancient books in languages we don't know, and slowly analyze them to understand what they are saying.

For example, suppose that you can eavesdrop on a spy's communications, but don't know what the words mean.  You get the local newspaper to put in a fake story that there will be no water the next week.  Then, you see the spy write a message that includes the word "kai" several times, when he never used the word "kai" before.  Now, you suspect that the word "kai" means "water".  (The US did something similar in World War II, which helped the Allies turn the tide of the war; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway#Allied_code-breaking .)

One common mistake among early cryptographer enthusiasts is to make a new "language" that's just an old language with the letters changed.  My friends and I used to pass notes in invented ciphers like that, just as practice breaking codes!

If you invent a language that's close to other human languages - such as if it has the same sentence structure as Sanskrit - then it becomes a lot easier to figure out how the language works.

Question 6

What would have it taken for Eve to descript the code?

Accepted Answer

There are many different types of codes and ciphers, and depending on the type, it would have taken varied amounts of time and equipment to solve the code.

Question 7

Where does encoding come into play.  Is this part of creating the "cypher?" Technically it is different from encrypting? Am I right I always confuse the two?

Accepted Answer

Encoding and encrypting are often used interchangeably. I would say that encrypting is used when you want to prevent some people from understanding a message, while encoding is when you want to transform the message but for it still to be read.

For example a message in English might be *encoded* using Morse code so it could be transmitted more easily and efficiently. If you thought someone might be listening to the line, you could also encrypt the message, for example, by using a Caesar cypher.

I suppose normally encoding would mean converting the form of the message, from text to binary numbers say. Whilst encrypting would not necessarily change the form, but convert from one set of letters to a different set. However, you can also create cyphers to convert text to numbers or something else that obscures the meaning.

Question 8

How exactly do people read peoples private messages (electronically, and non-electronically? And do they do it without letting the people sending and receiving messages know about it?

Accepted Answer

Sending information over the internet is equivalent to writing a message on a postcard and sending it through the mail in that anyone in the post office (or internet service provider) can snoop on your private messages just by looking at it.

Software programs called packet sniffers can let a user see any information that reaches their network card on their computer, and older networking equipment (hubs and coaxial networks) would naively broadcast all that information to everyone connected to it, with the assumption that each computer would just screen out any information that wasn't meant for it.

That hardware is less common now as more advanced (and faster) "switches" gradually replaced hubs. Switches are designed to only send the data to the intended computer. It is possible to fool a switch into sending the data to places it shouldn't go, but it requires that the eavesdropper actively tamper with the network, making it possible for them to be detected.

Internet safety

Course: Internet safety > Unit 1

What is cryptography?

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Video transcript