Cryptography Essay, Research Paper

The dictionary define cryprotograpgy as being ?The alteration of the form of a message by codes and ciphers to conceal its meaning. Code words, normally from the code book, stand for one or more words from the plain text (the original message). With ciphers the letters of the plain texture in individually substituted or transposed (reordered) according to a secret key.? To me that definition basically means at cryptology is when a message is taken from its original form and put into a code and that code has a certain key that must be obyained / known to read the coded message,

On January 19,1917 cryptography played a great role in the welfare of our country. Though Germany had previously promised President Wilson that it would cease attacking neutral carriers, on February 1, 1917 Germany strayed from its policy of “tolerance” and began unrestricted submarine warfare against all ships destined for Britain. Several American ships were sunk in February and March of 1917. At about this time, newspapers published an intercepted a coded telegram from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmerman to the government of Mexico, proposing a German-Mexican alliance. On April 2, President Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany; Congress complied four days later.

You see if our nations leaders and secruity personnel wouldn’t of known about cryptography, where would we be now?? Where would we be if no one had known how to decode that message? February 1, 1917 was a very important day in the history of the national welfare of the United States of America and I am mighty glad that there were people ready and actively trying to crack coded messages being sent from one enemy to another. To my knowledge that is cryptographys major contribution to history (at least in this century).

But wait! Don?t go thinking that cryptography is a thing of the past because it certainly is not! Looking on the web for information about the history of cryptography I was bombarded with individual companies personal web sites offering what is called “cryptographic services?. What that means is that you, or your company can hire these people to put all the information you want into a specially coded message that only you and the service know. The reason this had become so popular is because of hackers and other people trying to steal information. So say you are a scientist working for a firm: you discover that gene #23 holds the cure for anti aging. That information is VERY, VERY, VERY highly sought after and profitable and you don’t want any other firms or companies to find out about it. so you put it into ?your code? (developed by the cryptographic service) and then you can send it, post in and make it known only to desired individuals. Neat, huh?!

Past, present and future cryptography has, is and always will be important. From our nations security to our financial interest cryptography is bettering the lives of people everywhere. We are a very secretive, ‘restricted’ society where technology plays a huge role in our economy and every day life. I am interested to see where cryptography takes us in the new millennium.