Assignment: Cryptography and Security
Concepts
Course Code: CEE 529
Course Title: Cryptography Principles and Application
Registration Number: CE/2020/604
Name: Udechukwu Francis Chidubem
Write a short note on:
1. Entropy
Entropy in cryptography is a measure of the uncertainty or randomness in a system. It is
crucial in cryptography because the higher the entropy, the harder it is for an attacker to
predict or guess a cryptographic key or message. Entropy is often expressed in bits, where a
higher value indicates more uncertainty. In ideal conditions, a cryptographic system should
have maximum entropy to ensure security.
2. Perfect Secrecy
Perfect secrecy in cryptography refers to the concept that a cryptographic system is
perfectly secure if an attacker cannot obtain any information about the plaintext from the
ciphertext. The most famous example of a perfectly secret system is the one-time pad,
where the key is as long as the message, used only once, and completely random. Perfect
secrecy ensures that for any given ciphertext, each possible plaintext is equally likely.
3. Unicity Distance
Unicity distance is the minimum amount of ciphertext needed to uniquely determine the
corresponding plaintext in a given cipher. This concept is important for analyzing the
security of a cryptographic system. If the unicity distance is small, it means that the cipher
can be easily broken with a relatively small amount of ciphertext. The larger the unicity
distance, the harder it is to break the cipher.
4. Complexity Theorem
The complexity theorem in cryptography refers to the relationship between the security of a
cryptographic system and the computational resources required to break it. The theorem
suggests that a cipher is secure if breaking it requires an inordinate amount of time and
resources. This means that as the computational power of attackers grows, cryptographic
systems must also evolve to ensure they remain secure.
5. NP-Completeness
NP-completeness refers to a class of problems in computer science that are both in NP
(nondeterministic polynomial time) and as hard as any problem in NP. In cryptography, NP-
completeness is important because many cryptographic algorithms rely on the assumption
that certain problems are hard to solve in polynomial time. If these problems were to be
solved efficiently, the security of the cryptographic systems based on them would be
compromised.
6. Exponentiation Ciphers
Exponentiation ciphers are a class of public-key cryptosystems that rely on the
mathematical operation of exponentiation. The RSA algorithm is one of the most well-
known exponentiation ciphers. It uses the difficulty of factoring large prime numbers to
provide security. In this system, encryption and decryption are done using exponentiation
in a modular arithmetic system.
7. Knapsack Ciphers
Knapsack ciphers are a type of public-key cryptosystem based on the mathematical problem
known as the knapsack problem. The knapsack problem involves selecting a subset of
numbers from a given set such that their sum equals a particular value. In cryptography,
knapsack ciphers use this problem to create a trapdoor function, which is easy to compute
in one direction but hard to reverse without a secret key. However, the knapsack cipher is
no longer considered secure due to advances in cryptanalysis.
