What is cryptography and how does it work?
Cryptography, in its classic form, is a technology used to “scramble” information into an unreadable form. A newspaper cryptogram is a simple form of cryptography, although one which is trivially easy to break. Computers have revolutionised cryptography and have enabled incredibly powerful ciphers to be deployed. Computer ciphers have two chief components: a method (or algorithm) and a key. The two are used together to encrypt a message or file. The algorithm is public but the key is kept secret. Anyone who has the key can used the decryption algorithm for the cipher to unscramble a message or file. The key is usually just a big number. Ciphers come in several different types.
