[AP CSP] Encryption, Digital Certificates and Key Exchange Vocabulary

Capital A in ASCII

065

Lowercase a in ASCII

097

Certificate Authority (CA)

A certificate authority (CA) is a trusted entity that issues security certificates and public keys that are used for secure communication in a public network. The CA is responsible for confirming the identity and credentials of the entity for which they generate a certificate. The CA is the authority that is consulted when a computer wish to confirm the validity of a provided digital certificate.

Digital Certificates

A digital certificate authenticates the Web credentials of the sender and lets the recipient of an encrypted message know that the data is from a trusted source. A digital certificate is issued by a certification authority (CA).

Key

A secret like a password used to encrypt and decrypt information. There are a few different types of keys used in cryptography.

Asymmetric Key Encryption (Public/Private key encryption)

An encryption technique that uses a paired public and private key (or asymmetric key) algorithm for secure data communication. A message sender uses a recipient's public key to encrypt a message. The recipient must use their private key to decrypt the message.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

Deprecated predecessor to TLS

Diffe Hellman Key Exchange

Diffie-Hellman is a way of generating a shared secret between two people in such a way that the secret can't be seen by observing the communication. That's an important distinction: You're not sharing information during the key exchange, you're creating a key together.

RSA Algorithm

Generates Public/Private Key pair to be used for encrypting/decripting messages

Steganography

It is actually the science of hiding information from people who would snoop on you. The difference between steganography and encryption is that the would-be snoopers may not be able to tell there's any hidden information in the first place.

Encryption

It is the process of locking up information using cryptography. Information that has been locked this way is encrypted.

Symmetric Key Encryption

Symmetric encryption is a form of computerized cryptography using a singular encryption key to both encrypt and decrypt the message. Anyone with this key can access the message.

Decryption

The process of unlocking the encrypted information using cryptographic techniques.

Transport Layer Security (TLS)

Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a protocol that provides privacy and data integrity between two communicating applications. It's the most widely deployed security protocol used today, and is used for Web browsers and other applications that require data to be securely exchanged over a network, such as file transfers, VPN connections, instant messaging and voice over IP.

Monoalphabetic Cipher

Whole code is based on one letter standing in for another in the alphabet