Cryptography is a technique of encrypting and decrypting messages. When the text is encrypted, it is unreadable by humans. When the text is decrypted, it is readable by the humans. The terms used in cryptography are as follows: Plain text: This text can be read by a user. Cipher text: This text can be converted to a non-readable format. Encryption: It is the process of creating a cipher text from a plain text. Decryption: It is the process of converting a cipher text to a plain text. Cipher: It is an algorithm that is used to encrypt and decrypt text. Key: Keys are the elements that are used in the technology of encrypting and decrypting text. For more information read Cryptographic attack

What is MD5?

MD5 is an algorithm, which is used to check the integrity of the data through the construction of a 128-bit message digest from the input data, which may be a message of any length and is claimed to be as only one of its kind to that specific data. MD5 algorithm was developed by Professor Ronald L. Rivest. This algorithm is originally created to use with digital signature applications, which requires that large files must be compressed by a secure method before being encrypted with a secret key, under a public key cryptosystem. MD5 is currently a standard, Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Request for Comments (RFC) 1321. It has been revealed that MD5 is not crash resistant; therefore MD5 algorithm is not suitable for the applications like SSL certificates or digital signatures that rely on this property. An MD5 hash is typically expressed as a 32 digit hexadecimal number. MD5 digests have been extensively used in the software industries to give assurance that the file, which is transferred has arrived unchanged. For example, file servers often provide a pre-computed MD5 checksum for the files, so that a user can compare the checksum of the downloaded file to it. Unix-based operating systems include MD5 sum utilities in their distribution packages, whereas Windows users use third-party applications. MD5 algorithm processes a variable-length message into a fixed-length output of 128 bits. The input message is broken up into pieces of 512-bit blocks; the message is padded so that its length is divisible by 512. The padding works as follows: first a single bit, 1, is appended to the end of the message. This is followed by as many zeros as are required to bring the length of the message up to 64 bits fewer than a multiple of 512. The remaining bits are filled up with a 64-bit integer representing the length of the original message, in bits.

This centaury stands on the edge of new modern methods of attacks and advancement in the speed of computation, which taken over the best known secure secret-key algorithm such as DES, Digital Encryption Standard conquered the world of cryptography for centuries. A 40 bit version of the DES algorithm can be easily cracked by any modern computer and a 56 bit can be broken by any cheaply available Super Computer or by a simple beo-wulf cluster. That poses a security threat and people have developed, developing various other algorithms like 3DES also known as Triple DES etc, The NIST and NSA plays an important role in deciding the algorithms. They analyze and recommend the algorithm for usage.

The latest trends have opened for the AES Advanced Encryptions Standards and many algorithms have been submitted for the review. Some of them approved and under analysis. They are IDEA, RC5, RC6 Rjindael, MARS, Two-fish, Blowfish, Diamond, Sapphire etc. The inventions grow as the need increases. As per the truth, the importance of cryptography as given has a big response from scientific and legal bodies. Today, by the invention of high speed machines and high bandwidth transmission rates, people are planning to go further. The famous formula of energy mass relationship by Einstein e=mc2 has stepped into cryptography also. The Japanese have undertaken the improvement and implementation of quantum cryptography which uses the properties of the atoms and its inner particles for data integrity, which off course has a long way to go. The first commercially available quantum-cryptographic product is expected to be release
around 2040. In the future versions of this draft, we will go in more details about platform and operating system specific measures that can be carried to protect, various products that are available for each platoforms. More on snake-oil algorithms, choosing of secure products, various advanced cryptoanalytic methods, and details about steganography – the other facet of cryptography which uses the commonly available formats like gifs, jpegs, wavs, bmps file formats to hide secret data and retrieve them without affecting the quality of the used format.

What is Cryptography?