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In cryptography, ciphertext or cyphertext is the result of encryption performed on plaintext using an algorithm, called a cipher. [1] Ciphertext is also known as encrypted or encoded information because it contains a form of the original plaintext that is unreadable by a human or computer without the proper cipher to decrypt it.
The ciphertext message contains all the information of the plaintext message, but is not in a format readable by a human or computer without the proper mechanism to decrypt it. The operation of a cipher usually depends on a piece of auxiliary information, called a key (or, in traditional NSA parlance, a cryptovariable ).
A simple illustration of public-key cryptography, one of the most widely used forms of encryption. In cryptography, encryption (more specifically, encoding) is the process of transforming information in a way that, ideally, only authorized parties can decode.
This can be achieved, for instance, through the utilization of the chi-squared statistic [22] or by minimizing the sum of squared errors between the observed and known language distributions. [23] The unicity distance for the Caesar cipher is about 2, meaning that on average at least two characters of ciphertext are required to determine the ...
For instance, if all occurrences of the letter e turn into the letter X, a ciphertext message containing numerous instances of the letter X would suggest to a cryptanalyst that X represents e. The basic use of frequency analysis is to first count the frequency of ciphertext letters and then associate guessed plaintext letters with them.
In colloquial use, the term "code" is often used to mean any method of encryption or concealment of meaning. However, in cryptography, code has a more specific meaning: the replacement of a unit of plaintext (i.e., a meaningful word or phrase) with a code word (for example, "wallaby" replaces "attack at dawn"). A cypher, in contrast, is a ...
In cryptography, a ciphertext-only attack (COA) or known ciphertext attack is an attack model for cryptanalysis where the attacker is assumed to have access only to a set of ciphertexts. While the attacker has no channel providing access to the plaintext prior to encryption, in all practical ciphertext-only attacks, the attacker still has some ...
The ciphertext is sent through an insecure channel to the recipient. The recipient decrypts the ciphertext by applying an inverse decryption algorithm, recovering the plaintext. To decrypt the ciphertext, the recipient requires a secret knowledge from the sender, usually a string of letters, numbers, or bits, called a cryptographic key. The ...