Cryptology

From Citizendium
Revision as of 01:57, 23 November 2011 by imported>Sandy Harris (Rivest's definition)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This article is developing and not approved.
Main Article
Discussion
Related Articles  [?]
Bibliography  [?]
External Links  [?]
Citable Version  [?]
 
This editable Main Article is under development and subject to a disclaimer.

Please create the "Talk page". Just click this Talk page link and save the page.

Cryptology (the science of secrets, from Greek) is the general term that encompasses both cryptography (the study of techniques for keeping secrets) and cryptanalysis (codebreaking, acquiring secrets without authorisation). The field has a long and interesting history, see History of cryptology.

Cryptology provides the scientific background for a broad range of activities in signals intelligence and information security.

Based on Claude Shannon's definition of Information theory as the study of "Communication in the presence of noise", Ron Rivest wrote: "Cryptology is about communication in the presence of adversaries"[people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/Rivest-Cryptography.pdf].