Blown to Bits Chapter 5 Reflection

• What is encryption?
• Encryption is the art of encoding messages so that they can’t be understood by eavesdroppers or adversaries into whose hands the messages might fall.
• What is cryptography? Provide an example.
• Cryptography is a form of “secret messages” that are encoded. A Caesar Cipher is a commonly known form of cryptography because it uses the rotation of the alphabet to encode messages.
• What is security through obscurity? Why is it bad?
• Security through obscurity is when companies create new “breakthrough” encryption methods, but refuse to open to the public. This is seem with high skepticism because most believe that if there was a new method then it should be open to the public to prove its security.
• What is the key agreement protocol? Why is it important to Internet commerce?
• The key agreement protocol is a one way computation which is a solution that can be found many different ways. For example 6*2=12 but 3*4=12 also. Same result but a different way of getting there. It is important because it allows for exchanges to happen with secret messages and public and private keys.
• What is a certificate? What role does it play in Internet security?
• A certificate is digitally authorized and signed key. This allows someone’s public key to be public and a message still accessed if someone has a certificate to access their private key.