A brief history and a panoramic overview of cryptographic algorithms

Nobody probably knows which cryptogram was the first to be invented. Cryptography has been used for a long time, approximately 4,000 years, and it has changed its paradigms a lot. First, it was a kind of hidden language, then cryptography was based on a transposition of letters in a mechanical fashion, then finally, mathematics and logic were used to solve complicated problems. What will the future hold? Probably, new methods will be invented to hide our secrets: quantum cryptography, for example, is already being experimented with and will come soon. I will explain new algorithms and methods throughout this book, but let me use this section to show you some interesting ciphers related to the classical period. Despite the computation power we have now, some of these algorithms have not yet been broken.

Rosetta Stone

One of the first extraordinary examples of cryptography was hieroglyphics. Cryptography means hidden...