FAQs for Ancient Cryptography Lesson

Isn't this used when paying over the internet?

Yes, safe internet purchases involve encryption. When you buy something through an insecure network, though, encryption might not be used, therefor...Read more

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

Wars were were often decided by encryption, for example watch the video on WW2 encryption machines. There were not 'started' by encryption...encryp...Read more

Can't people make their own languages to communicate secretly. It is very much possible. Cryptograph...

There are things like the Navajo Wind Talkers that do similar things. However, modern code-breaking and linguistic analysis techniques can help sti...Read more

I heard that there are some games that are known to be "NP-perfect" problems. What i want to ask is ...

When converting any problem into a cipher, you need to think about, how three things are represented: -message text -key -cipher text I haven't pla...Read more

Where does encoding come into play. Is this part of creating the "cypher?" Technically it is differe...

Encoding and encrypting are often used interchangeably. I would say that encrypting is used when you want to prevent some people from understanding...Read more

So why do you need to know prime numbers and dice rolls to understand cryptography?

Only for advanced modern cryptography that involves algorithms, key sharing, and computer programs. All you need to know for ancient cryptography i...Read more

What is the most common cipher?

Probably DES (Data Encryption Standard). Also, try avoiding questions that can be Googled. You will get an answer alot faster that way. I was able...Read more

How exactly do people read peoples private messages (electronically, and non-electronically? And do ...

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 o...Read more

why would Caesar use ciphers?

Caesar used ciphers so that important information, such as the location of a attack or the date it would be carried out, would be unknown to enemie...Read more

Decoding the Caesar Cipher based on the "fingerprint" requires a large sample space . I mean lets sa...

To the original question, yes, shorter messages make it harder to detect the frequency distribution, but you'd be surprised how quickly it shows up...Read more

At 0:37 MEET is encrypted as PHHN. M is shifted "ahead" 3 letters to P, E is shifted "ahead" 3 lette...

Because it's wrong; the 't' in "at" or "elephant" should be the same letter but it's W. The sequence should be 'p', 'h', 'h', 'w', 'p', 'h', 'd', '...Read more

Do we still use written ciphers today?

Now a days written ciphers are almost only used by hobbyists. Computers have made using much better modern ciphers, much easier (to the point that...Read more

Does anyone still use the Ceasar cipher?

Outside of simple code-breaking puzzles and encoded messages sent by children, not really. A human could easily brute-force break the Ceasar cipher...Read more

Does anybody know how to make a Caeser cipher using Python?

It's been a long time since I've used python but this should do the trick: `def encrypt(messagetext,shift): ciphertext="" mlength=len(messagetext)...Read more

How can one design a cipher for languages with logographic (writing systems with thousands of letter...

Approach 1: 1) convert symbols to their phonetic equivalents e.g. for Japanese you could write the kanji symbols as hiragana (you see this a lot in...Read more

What if I used a shift of 46 or some other high number to encrypt my message ? How would that be dec...

All shifts will be a number from 0 to 25. If one tries to use a shift greater than 25 it will wrap around back to 0 again. If you use a shift X, th...Read more

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