Cryptography is Everywhere

Historically, cryptography was used for secret communication by exclusive sectors only — such as governments, military and spies — since it was crucial and affordable to them. They have long been aware of the consequences of their messages falling into the wrong hands; therefore, this situation has motivated the development of techniques for disguising a message so that only the intended recipient can read it. 

The huge desire for secrecy led nations, kings, and queens to make all-out efforts to ensure the security of communications by inventing the best possible secret codes and ciphers. 

A lover in Victorian times

As the public also became aware of the need to protect personal messages of a highly sensitive nature, they also became comfortable with encipherment. They began to express their cryptographic skills in a variety of ways — for example, young lovers in Victorian England were often forbidden from publicly expressing their affection, and could not even communicate by letter in case their parents intercepted and read the contents. This resulted in lovers sending encrypted messages to each other via the personal columns of newspapers, more specifically, via the classified ads. 

But what exactly is cryptography? Simply put, it is the study of how to send secret messages by codes and ciphers, in other words, cryptography is the art and science of keeping messages secure. Perhaps the most famous encryption machine is the Enigma which was developed by Nazi Germany to protect commercial and military communication during World War II and then cracked by Alan Turing — it is difficult to avoid getting excited when talking about the Enigma machine, isn't it? During that time, he worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking centre. He played a decisive role in cracking intercepted coded messages which enabled the Allies to defeat the Nazis and shorten the war by as many as two to four years. This certainly saved millions of lives as well. 

The Enigma Machine

With the arrival of major advancements in science and technology, this field has played an extremely important role beyond military’s security becoming financially and technologically accessible and increasingly essential for ordinary people and companies. 

Nowadays, cryptography is not only about secret communication but also data security — including confidentiality, integrity, authentication and non-repudiation. 

It is commonly used for e-commerce especially electronic transactions in the banking system, cash withdrawal from an ATM, instant messaging, file storage, email, web browsing, GSM mobile phone, cryptocurrency, etc. We are using cryptography more than ever before.

Notwithstanding the beneficial impact on society, cryptography has also raised some concerns related to human rights, ethical, and legal issues because it can certainly be used for bad purposes as well — such as organising terrorist attacks and abusing people. In this sense, companies have a duty to protect data based on contract, laws, and industry regulations related to Copyright and Digital Rights Management. Also, some governments have the right to request key disclosure either from the accused or from third parties, but it also compromises people's privacy.

Having the forces of law and order lobbying to restrict the use of cryptography gives rise to the heated controversy over which one has more value for us: our privacy or an effective police force? This controversial issue certainly conflicts with both sides' interests. 

Not surprisingly, issues like this are being addressed by the global movement Amnesty International which says Encryption is a matter of Human Rights, which basically means that people everywhere should be able to encrypt their communications and private personal data for the sake of their rights to privacy and free speech.

Code-breaking attacks have also been improved considerably resulting in cryptographers working on new ways to make stronger cryptography which thrives only until its weakness is identified by codebreakers. So, secret codes and ciphers are constantly under attack from codebreakers which continually force them to evolve to survive the onslaught of new attacks. This ongoing battle has resulted in remarkable scientific breakthroughs and accelerating technological developments. Also, this situation has mostly looked like a quest for absolute secrecy — which is not possible for now at a reasonable cost. 

Cryptography is everywhere, and you might have not noticed yet; it is because cryptography is mostly working in silence — in the background — it is invisible; it is always working in the dark to help secure our communication and data. It is always there to protect us.

I must mention that cryptography is a central topic within theoretical computer science, which covers a broad range of key-related topics having maths as the game-changer. It is strongly linked to mathematics, algorithms, etc. Good cryptography needs good mathematics, and it is practised by cryptographers who are trained in theoretical mathematics.

Cryptography is just wonderful — Welcome to the freewheeling world of cryptography...