Cryptology & Steganography

Cryptology is the science of data that is static or in transit, and the using of a cipher to keep its true meaning hidden.

Cryptography is the study of techniques and principles of concealment of information by way of a cipher.

Cryptanalysis is the art of deciphering or forging encrypted information with out a key. Creating and breaking ciphers is common place in the area of research.

Auguste Kerckhoffs (19 January 1835 – 9 August 1903)

Dutch born Cryptographer wrote a two part paper, 1883 in Le Journal des Sciences Militaires (Journal of Military Science) entitled La Cryptographie Militaire (Military Cryptography).

6 Principles of Practical Cipher Design

The system should be, if not theoretically unbreakable, unbreakable in practice.
The design of a system should not require secrecy, and compromise of the system should not inconvenience the correspondents (Kerckhoffs's principle).
The key should be memorable without notes and should be easily changeable.
The cryptograms should be transmittable by telegraph.
The apparatus or documents should be portable and operable by a single person.
The system should be easy, neither requiring knowledge of a long list of rules nor involving mental strain.

Kerckhoffs's principle: The principle holds that a cryptosystem should be secure, even if everything about the system, except the key, is public knowledge.

Source is Wikipedia:

Cryptography has been around since the dawn of man. Ciphers have been employed in the highest echelons of society, as well as the most secret of occult societies, and fraternal brotherhoods. Ciphers historically have been used by military generals to get messages behind enemy lines or to relay information to future generations as seen in hieroglyphs. In a more modern era, today presently cipher have been used to encode information that is in transit or at rest in a storage device. Encryption is used to keep all of our data safe in the cyber world. There is a need for cybersecurity cryptologists, and will be a greater need as the cyberspace grows.

Steganography tools can be used to encode files into pictures and music. You should google steganography, it can be beneficial to your security in some obscure reason you could probably dream up. I use it for banking info. It requires a passcode to decode the coded image and or file to readable format.

If you do run Linux you could run: $ sudo apt install steghide stegcracker -y. Both are great tools, Steghide allows you to imbed files into pictures, also Stegcracker. A steganography brute force utility used to uncover hidden files that were imbedded into images. Both are fun to play around with. Kali Linux has many tools available similar to Steghide & Stegcracker. Check it out.

Caesar Cipher

This cipher was said to have been used in Julius Caesar's Private correspondents. The Caesar used this cipher to encode messages because his life was in danger, and that spies were in his court. In fact, he had constant assassination attempts from people whom he knew intimately. Caesar was known to use several ciphers in his communications. We can only benefit from Caesar and his methods in our everyday life.

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