Cryptology: What is it, what is it for and what are all the disciplines of it?

You should know that the technology that we handle daily and that many times we misuse and do not take advantage of, in order to reach us, It goes through certain processes that we do not know.

All this often involves electronics, programming, design and other sciences that are implicit, so that we have a mobile phone or a computer in our hands. Some of them make noise when we listen to them, and we think that it is something foreign. But it’s the opposite, they mix a lot in these areas.

That is why in this article we are going to talk about one of them, which is cryptology. Here you will find just a mouth opener of this interesting topic, with a brief history through ancient civilizations and their functions today.

What is cryptology and what is it for?

Cryptology is a science that has been present in humanity in various civilizations, thanks to her good and bad people have been able to achieve their goals at many important points throughout our history.

The word comes from the Greek language and it is divided into 2; “Krypto”, referring to a mystery, something hidden or secret, and “Logos”, which may well mean symbol or logo as it is understood, but in this case it is attributed to the studio.

As a quick conclusion we can say that cryptology is the science that is responsible for deciphering secret messages, and also the way to hide a message in plain sight, through a communications channel, which could be a computer network.

To achieve this, cryptology uses what is known as encoding, This is used to convert a common message into a code, which can only be understood by the person who has the decoding information in his possession.

Basically, it is an art that allows to protect the information, in this way to avoid that even if it falls into the wrong hands, it can be interpreted as it really is.

History and evolution of cryptology How has it improved over the years?

It is possible that since the time of the Egyptians cryptology was already used as a method of communication, since their texts required a code to be able to be decoded. Still, this cannot be called cryptology as we know it today.

The first to actually encrypt the information, of which a record could be obtained, were the Romans when their empire was in full swing and they were in the conquest of the known world.

The encryption method used by them is the famous “Caesar Cipher”, with which it is said that the Romans shared their maneuvers and battle strategies to prevent their plans from falling into enemy hands.

This allowed only the generals to have access to the information carried by the messengers in the scrolls. This simple method consisted of a determined displacement of the letters according to their position in the alphabet.

For example, if the letter “A” with an offset of 5, then counting from the “A” 5 letters the corresponding letter is the “F”, and they on different occasions could change the displacement number up to number 24, which allowed some complexity for their enemies.

Approximately 800 years later, an Arab mathematician named al kindi, he devised a technique that allowed him to break the caesar cipher, by counting the most frequent letters.

In general, the letter that is repeated the most in a text of our language is the “AND”. Yes in a ciphertext the letter “J” is repeated more than all, probably the displacement number is 4, because from J to E there are 4 letters in between.

Later, we know that in the 2 world wars that our race has suffered, cryptology played a very important role in its development.

Currently, much of the advances in it have been vetoed from the general public by almost every government in the world. In his time the NSA of the United States, prohibited any distribution of materials of this type, because they kept all these hidden techniques for their espionage operations.

Over time these restrictions have eased a bit, and that is why almost all the technology we handle on a daily basis is encrypted. Such is the case of WhatsApp messaging, cryptocurrencies, bank transactions and hundreds of examples.

What are the main disciplines framed within the cryptological technique?

Cryptology encompasses 4 major disciplines that make this art a complete science. Here we tell you what they are:

Cryptography

It comes from two Greek words, which are “Krypt”, that we already mentioned refers to the occult, and “Graphé” What does writing mean?

Many people tend to think that the cryptography is true science, but it is not so, since only it is a discipline that is part of cryptology.

For its part, cryptography is the discipline of cryptology that allows us to distort the message, in a way that only those who have the keys can understand what is being transmitted.

In our era it plays an important role, since cryptography has been used for 10 years to transfer value from one point to another, without the need for intermediaries and without the risk of interference, this is the famous Bitcoin.

Cryptanalysis

It can be said that it is the opposite of cryptography, since this it seeks to open gaps in the weak points of complex cryptographic systems. Once its objective has been fulfilled, it allows the information to be interpreted correctly. This discipline is also divided into two Greek words, hidden or secret and “Analyein”, which means unleash or discover.

It can serve to strengthen cryptography techniques, because by finding the vulnerabilities of an encrypted system, they can be corrected and security increased.

steganography

This discipline is similar to cryptography, but its difference is that it is a little more complex and novel. As we have already seen in cryptography, encryption allows you to send a message with hidden and meaningless content, to someone who does not have the keys to decrypt it.

On the other hand, steganography allows, in addition to sending an encrypted message, hide the existence of the message, in such a way that its existence is not even suspected.

in computing, steganography allows sending compressed and hidden information in files video, images or documents, which makes it very difficult to detect hidden messages in common files.

steganalysis

Like everything has its counterpart, steganalysis performs the opposite functions of steganography, so it is responsible for detecting in which files the encrypted messages are hidden.

Cryptology in the digital age. How does this system work in computer security?

Despite not realizing it cryptology has been inserted into our society in all the things we do on a daily basis, to be more precise cryptography.

But, it should be noted that before this was reserved only for the use of governments, to protect war secrets and all the things that can harm the security of a country.

Thanks to the great advance of the Internet, this science was increasingly required in these environments to avoid, as far as possible, the unfortunate virtual scams, hacks and frauds.

That is why all information travels through different types of encryption, some more complex than others. But, This is also the only way that the information does not lose its way and reaches its destination intact. A clear example is bank transfers, cryptocurrency payments, text messages, some types of web calls, emails, among many others.