10 Sep Comments-1 100 Words. Caesar Cypher

Comments-1 100 Words. Caesar Cypher

Caesar Cypher is a method of protecting information and has its origin from Julius Caesar. It is also known asthe shift cipher or theCaesar’scode. Julius invented the cipher between 100B.C and 44 B.C so as to enhance the privacy of his messages.Whenever he had anything confidential to communicate, he would encrypt it using this method (Stallings &Williams, 2018). Caesar cipher was the simplest and widely known encryption method. It was mainly used by the military to protect their messages and therefore no one could understand the information conveyed.

Inthe1915, the Russian army adopted the Caesar cipher since itwas a bit less complicated for their troops to master unlike the German and Austrian encryption methods (Syiham et al., 2018). The Caesar cipher method entailed rearranging the letters of thealphabet, where he replaced each plaintext letter with a different number of places down the alphabet. Julius Cipher used a shift of three where A became D when encrypting and D became A when decrypting. However, this was not the first Cipher to be used as there were others which were used earlier. The use of this encryption method had impact on the cryptography.

The Caesar cipher method made the cryptography process easier. This is because it only involved shifting backwards in the number of spaces shifted in the encryption process in order to decrypt themessage. Inthe ancient times this method was secure since many people were illiterate and therefore they could not understand it and they thoughtthemessage was written in foreign language (Sinkov & Paul, 2016). However, in the present days theCaesarciphermethod is less reliable since it can easily be cracked and therefore expose the message. The reliability of these codes can be enhanced by using a shift of more spaces such as thirteen. Inthe present day some of the cipher codes can be found on toys. Therefore,the Caesar cipher is an effective and well known method that provided maximum security in the earlier days and had much application in the military.

References

Sinkov Abraham, Paul Irwin, (2016), Elementary Cryptanalysis: A Mathematical Approach,4(2),16-20

Stallings, Williams, (2018), Cryptography and Network Security,8th edition. Pearson

Syiham Mod, Cuan Weh, Nurul Hidavah, (2018), A Study of Caesar Cipher and Transposition; Advanced Science Letters 24(3),1651-1655

Comments-2 100 Words. Julius Caesar is said to have used and invented the classic example of cryptography. Also known as a shift cipher, the Caesar cipher techniques have been widely known and used for a long time. This technique can be explained as a substitution cipher where coding involves replacing a letter in the plaintext with a static number in the alphabet, such as replacing D with A using a left shift. Julius Caesar invented encryption techniques while conducting private correspondence. Privacy was meant to ensure that military significance was maintained by keeping messages secret (Andress, 2014). The initial encryption has been borrowed and adapted to fit modern methods such as ROT13 and Vigenere cipher. The Caesar cipher is purely based on the transposition of plaintext letters into numbers. In essence, a similar number is used in a similar but opposite manner. Different arguments have been floated over its effectiveness and shortcomings, although most people agree that the encryption method was effective during Caesar’s era. 

The impacts and advancements of the Caesar cipher can be seen through the ROT13 cipher. The cipher method applies the same basic, but it has been modified such that a substitution is derived after 13 moves forward.  The changes bring the advantage that moving 13 places provides both encryption and decryption. The decryption is derived since 13 moves through another round would result in a return to the original position. ROT13 has been actively used in fundamental tools that apply either Linux or UNIX OS systems (Andress, 2014). Caesar’s cipher has been primarily used in military messaging, where interaction is meant to encrypt communications by changing the shift value. Such alternations provide similar results to the initial Caesar cipher but with alternative substitutions.

References

Andress, J. (2014). The Basics of Information Security (Second Edition). Understanding the Fundamentals of Infosec in Theory and Practice, 69-88.