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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.
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.
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 ).
Ciphertext indistinguishability is a property of many encryption schemes. Intuitively, if a cryptosystem possesses the property of indistinguishability, then an adversary will be unable to distinguish pairs of ciphertexts based on the message they encrypt.
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 ...
The ciphertext on the left-hand side of the sculpture (as seen from the courtyard) of the main sculpture contains 869 characters in total: 865 letters and 4 question marks. In April 2006, Sanborn released information stating that a letter was omitted from this side of Kryptos "for aesthetic reasons, to keep the sculpture visually balanced". [5]
In Shannon's original definitions, confusion refers to making the relationship between the ciphertext and the symmetric key as complex and involved as possible; diffusion refers to dissipating the statistical structure of plaintext over the bulk of ciphertext.
To gain information about the meaning of various ciphertexts, an adversary might perform a statistical analysis of messages transmitted over an encrypted channel, or attempt to correlate ciphertexts with observed actions (e.g., noting that a given ciphertext is always received immediately before a submarine dive).