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cryptography: Quick Facts

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Photos and Videos

Enigma
Jade cipher machine
Purple cipher machine
Frequency distribution for plaintext and its repeated-key Vigenère cipher
Diagram explaining the German ADFGVX cipher from World War I, showing a biliteral substitution array, examples of plaintext and intermediate ciphertext in red, and a transposition matrix with final ciphertext in blue.
DES flow diagram
A Vigenere cipher table displays the alphabet in both the top row and left column, with rows shifted to create a grid for encryption and decryption. Highlighted letters illustrate how to use the table. An explanation and example using the words cipher, key, and plaintext appears to the right.
How William Friedman Tried to Prove That Francis Bacon Wrote Shakespeare's Plays
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Key People

Charles H. Bennett
Charles H. Bennett
American physicist
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Michael Oser Rabin
Israeli American mathematician
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Ronald L. Rivest
American computer scientist
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Andrew Chi-Chih Yao
Chinese American computer scientist
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Adi Shamir
Israeli cryptographer
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Michael Ventris
British architect and cryptographer
Leon Battista Alberti
Leon Battista Alberti
Italian architect and author