Encryption

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  encryption \encryption\ n.
     the process of converting messages in ordinary language, or
     other information into a secret coded form that cannot be
     interpreted without knowing the secret method for
     interpretation, called the key.
  


     Note: Encryption is used commonly to allow messages to be
           transmitted between parties at a distance without
           permitting others to read and understand the message.
           It is also used to make data more secure from possible
           discovery and uninterpretable by unauthorized people
           accessing the data. In order to read an encrypted
           message, a party normally requires knowledge of both
           the method of encryption and the secret key, which may
           be a single word or more complex sequence of
           characters. Until recently, transmission of such secret
           messages required that the key be transmitted secretly
           by some seecure and reliable method to the party
           receiving the message. More recently, a mathematical
           method was discovered to allow a party to publish an
           encoding key (the public key) which allows anyone to
           encode a message, but the message thus encoded can only
           be decoded by the person possessing a corresponding
           key, called the private key. This two-key system is
           called the {public-key encryption} method.
  
     Syn: encoding, coding, enciphering, ciphering, cyphering,
          writing in code.
          [WordNet 1.5]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  encryption
       n : the activity of converting from plain text into code [syn: {encoding}]

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  encryption
       
           Any procedure used in {cryptography}
          to convert {plaintext} into {ciphertext} (encrypted message)
          in order to prevent any but the intended recipient from
          reading that data.
       
          Schematically, there are two classes of encryption primitives:
          {public-key cryptography} and {private-key cryptography}; they
          are generally used complementarily.
          Public-key encryption algorithms include {RSA};
          private-key algorithms include the obsolescent {Data Encryption
          Standard}, the {Advanced Encryption Standard}, as well as
          {RC4}.
       
          The {Unix} command {crypt} performs a weak form of encryption.
          Stronger encryption programs include {Pretty Good Privacy} and
          the {GNU Privacy Guard}.
       
          Other closely related aspects of {cryptograph} include
          {message digests}.
       
          (2003-04-12)