REPLY 1

Question A

What are three common encryption ciphers used to protect network communications, and what are the capabilities that they offer?

Question B

How does public key cryptography provide protection for network data? What are the major elements that enable it to provide this capability?

REFLECT AND REPLY TO CLASSMATE DISCUSSION TO BOTH OF THE ABOVE QUESTIONS EXPLAINING WHY YOU AGREE (MINIMUM OF 125 WORDS)

                                                  CLASSMATE’S DISCUSSION

Question A

The three common encryption ciphers used to protect network communications are monoalphabetic, polyalphabetic, and transposition cipher. A monoalphabetic substitution-based cipher replaces a character or group of characters with a different character or group of characters, (White, 2016). This type of cipher is simple. However, there is a disadvantage of the frequency of the substituting. The polyalphabetic substitution-based cipher is similar to the mono alphabetic cipher, but it uses multiple alphabetic strings to encode the plaintext, rather than one alphabetic string, (White, 2016). This type of cipher is better because it prevents a frequency analysis or algorithms from decoding easily. A transposition-based cipher is different from a substitution-based cipher in that the order of the plaintext is not preserved, (White, 2016). With the transposition cipher the character is moved but not changed.

Reference:

White, C. (2016). Data Communications and Computer Networks: A Business User's Approach

(Independence, KY: Cengage Learnings ISBN: 9781305729902 8th ed.). 

Question B

Data encrypted with the public key can be decoded only with the public key, and data encrypted with the private key can be decoded only with the public key, (White, C. 2016). Public key cryptography provides protection to network data when one person or organization has either a key to code or decode. One end will have the public key that encrypts, and the other private key will decode the ciphertext.

Reply 2

Question A

What are three common encryption ciphers used to protect network communications, and what are the capabilities that they offer?

Question B

How does public key cryptography provide protection for network data? What are the major elements that enable it to provide this capability?

REFLECT AND REPLY TO CLASSMATE DISCUSSION TO BOTH OF THE ABOVE QUESTIONS EXPLAINING WHY YOU AGREE (MINIMUM OF 125 WORDS)

                                                   CLASSMATE’S DISCUSSION

Question A

Question A – Triple DES, AES ad RSA are the most common encryption ciphers.

Triple DES was a recommended encryption standard and at one point, used to be one of the most used symmetric algorithm in the industry. Triple DES uses three keys that are 56 bits each. Although total key length is supposed to be 168 bits, some argue they are 112 bits in strength. 

AES is the algorithm standard used by the US government and a good number of companies and organizations. AES comes in 128, 192, and 256 ciphers. AES is one of the most resilient encryption ciphers in the market today.

RSA is a public key encryption algorithm and the standard encryption for data sent over the internet. Those familiar with PGP will know that RSA is one of the encryption methods used in the program. This encryption algorithm is asymmetric, requiring a public key to encrypt the message and a private key to decrypt it.

Question B

Public cryptography works on the principle of using two keys, a public key and a private key to protect the data. The user of the technology receives a public/private key pair from a certified authority. When data is sent to other users, they have access to the public key from the sender, which has been used to encrypt the data. When the message arrives at its destination, the recipient can then use its private key to decrypt the message.

The major elements that support this system are the public/private key pairs, the certifying authority and the principle of public keys, which eliminates the need for users to exchange their private keys. 

Reference:

– Lord, N. (2018). A definition of public cryptography. Retrieved Jun 22, 2022 from  https://digitalguardian.com/blog/what-public-key-cryptography