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11 XI November 2023
https://doi.org/10.22214/ijraset.2023.57144
International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
ISSN: 2321-9653; IC Value: 45.98; SJ Impact Factor: 7.538
Volume 11 Issue XI Nov 2023- Available at www.ijraset.com
2715
©IJRASET: All Rights are Reserved | SJ Impact Factor 7.538 | ISRA Journal Impact Factor 7.894 |
A Comprehensive Overview of the Unequivocal
Influence and Evolution of Cryptography on
Security
Aadya Jain
Student of Fountainhead School, Surat
Abstract: As this society unfolds into a conundrum of new possibilities and technical advancements, it simultaneously sets
ground to several unprecedented challenges for its users. What today’s digitally ensnared society doesn’t understand is its
vulnerability to malicious software, cyber attacks, and innumerable privacy violations that come their way as they mold
themselves into this digital realm. For a country like India, that well adapts to the newer technologies invented across the globe,
it is astonishing to see almost 1.3 million cybersecurity breaches being recorded in 2022, a hideous spike from 2019. Current
internet users feel the need to be active on such delusional platforms every minute of their day, exposing themselves at every
stage. This empowers unethical practices and practitioners to lure unsuspecting candidates into their traps and obtain private
information linked to several sensitive, especially monetary affairs of the individual, consequently resulting in severe financial
losses. Ironically, the very technological influence that facilitates security breaches is one that helps in its deterrence and
prevention. One of the most predominant and recent technologies that have empowered its influence over such prevention is
cryptography and encryption. Traditionally, prior to the widespread awareness about cryptography, companies and individuals
used Access Control Lists(ACLs) that work on the basic principle of restricting or revoking access on certain administrative
grounds offering data confidentiality and security on the internet. Apart from these companies, in the ancient times, there was
significant use of Caesar Cipher, a way of encryption that works on the principle of substitution by a shift of some number down
the alphabet. These traditional methods lacked transparency, had increased complexity, were insufficient for rapidly growing
networks such as online social media, and also lacked scalability. In order to compensate for these challenges, a newer
technology concatenated with cryptography is to be made prevalent in society so that it can offer more scalable and trustworthy
encryption and security prevention from online security breaches across the globe. With this ideology, prevention and awareness
both can be obtained and a better and safer society can be established in this generation.
Keywords: Access Control Lists (ACLs), Cryptography, Encryption, Cybersecurity, and Caesar Cipher.
I. INTRODUCTION
Cryptography is the science behind securing communication employs codes and ciphers that help encrypt and decrypt a particular
message. Cryptography ensures data confidentiality and data integrity serving as two integral parts within its broader application
and has been applied in real life situations concerning warfare, digital security, etc since numerous preceding decades. As today’s
society is ensnared in the wrath of technological vulnerabilities that violates the privacy of an individual to an enormous extent,
cryptography emerges as one of the most viable solutions that incorporates transparency, trust, ethics, and simplicity as it continues
to develop in recent times. Although the scientific community began to embrace cryptography predominantly in recent decades, the
application roots back to the millenia where it helped Romans under Julius Caesar, Germany under Adolf Hitler during the World
War II, and England with the help of experts like Alan Turing, Gordon Welchmen, Harold Keen, etc at the Bletchley Park.
Furthermore, its lesser-known yet significant historical uses include the first World War, featuring tools like the Vigenère disk, code
books, and manual transposition ciphers. However, it is crucial to note that as these cryptographic modules need to be evaluated on
a variety of ethical, economical, social factors in order to coherently understand their mechanism in the real world.
II. TIMELINE OF EVENTS (EVOLUTION)
The evolution of cryptography has been simultaneous to several other inventions across ancient history as physicists and
mathematicians worked in unison to benefit this interdisciplinary field for a greater accomplishment. The initial uses of
cryptography revolve around inscription done by the Romans, Egyptians, and several other civilizations to carve their sentimental
artifacts.
International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
ISSN: 2321-9653; IC Value: 45.98; SJ Impact Factor: 7.538
Volume 11 Issue XI Nov 2023- Available at www.ijraset.com
2716
©IJRASET: All Rights are Reserved | SJ Impact Factor 7.538 | ISRA Journal Impact Factor 7.894 |
Following this were its applications in the first and second World Wars where both parties used these resources for subterfuge,
secret communication, and strategy discussion with their armies up front. As the World Wars terminated, technological
advancements embarked upon an unprecedented course, becoming increasingly demanding across universities, foundations, and
centers that were then established for mathematics and sciences across the globe. Below is the explicit timeline categorized into 4
main categories that are the Pre-computing age(ancient times), War-time Communication, Modern Computation, and Contemporary
Computation.
A. Pre-computing Age (ancient times)
The exploration into the dawn of cryptography unveils an intricate tapestry of developments along history, beginning from the
hieroglyphics of the Egyptians to the Caesar Ciphers of the Romans. Primarily, recorded history of the Egyptian nobleman’s tomb in
1900 BC showed inscriptions replacing ordinary text with hieroglyphics, associated with pictorial writing during the Egyptian
civilization. These hieroglyphics were replacements against ordinary text that were then carved upon Egyptian entities such as
tombs and several artifacts across their civilizations. The primary reason for such encryption revolved around secret communication
since the decryption to these elements were only known to a few. Up until the end of the 18th century, no reputed Egyptologist was
able to decrypt the Egyptian hieroglyphics. However, several conclusions were determined by two of the famous Johan Akerblad
and Thomas Young who were able to achieve partial success in deciphering the Rosetta Stone. Rosetta stone, a stone accidentally
found on Napoleon's expedition to Egypt in 1799, near Rashid on the Mediterranean coast.
The Rosetta Stone was an accumulation of three scripts, hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek. The cumulative partial success was
presented on the study of the demotic texts from the Rosetta stone and in the presumption of the false hypothesis that stated these
hieroglyphics to be symbols rather than elements of pictorial writing. Thomas Young later rectified his wrongdoings and further
succeeded in identifying the fact that demotic texts were essentially curated from these hieroglyphics which further led him to
isolate single consonant hieroglyphics. After 21 years of extensive research, where every Egyptologist failed to fully decipher the
Egyptian inscription, a Frenchman Jean-Francois Champollian was finally able to decipher the encoded writing in 1822. He was
able to achieve complete success in his dissertation since he was able to identify the fact that these hieroglyphic writings were not
symbols but a phonetic script, a script corresponding to speech sounds. Champollian later died in 1832, however, was considered
one of the greatest minds in the field of Egyptology. After the Egyptian Civilization, advancements in ancient technologies were
profoundly prevalent during the Roman period under Julius Caesar that introduced the Caesar Cipher in 100 BC. The Caesar cipher
was introduced by Julius Caesar during his Gallic Wars as he intended to communicate with his besieged Cicero. This was when
Julius Caesar used the basic principle of substitution replacing the Greek alphabet with the Roman alphabet. This basic substitution
helped him deceive his opponents and successfully communicate with his allies all along. The Caesar cipher then introduced was an
invention that substituted the letters in the message with a shift of a particular number down the alphabet. This was widely
recognized as one of the primary applications of cryptography in ancient history. While the Caesar Cipher was profoundly
recognized, another method through which cryptography was performed in the ancient times was the Scytale Cipher invented by the
Greeks in 400 BC. This worked on the principle quite opposite to one that the Caesar Cipher used. The Scytale jumbled the message
into an anagram for each of the words. Here, the characters of the plaintext are ciphered in a way that the encrypted version has the
same characters but are scrambled; it operates as a transposition cipher.
Additionally, as the Caesar Cipher gained ubiquity, a device called the Secret Decoder Ring was introduced in society that acted as a
cultural emblem resonating to the concept of cryptography in ancient history for the Romans. The Secret decoder ring was used as a
popular tool in movies and online cinema that portrayed the ancient warfare and history of several civilizations. Although no real
time implementations have been prevalent in the chronology of cryptographic development, the secret decoder ring acted as a
cultural symbol to several communities across society.
B. War-time Communication
The lives of people prior to the invention of the internet in 1983 was an accumulation of discovery and struggle as the 1900s
embarked upon the two crucial world wars one from 1914 to 1918 and the other from 1939 to 1945. Even though these world wars
were lethally agonizing for humankind, it resulted in the inventions and discoveries of several components that are currently one of
the most crucial parts of society. In the field of cryptography, these two world wars incorporated a series of inventions and
revelations that changed the course of history internally within the warfare as well as externally for the society. Primarily, in context
to World War One, the use of cryptography was accentuating in fields of telecommunications that was exceptionally paramount
with the armies upfront.
International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
ISSN: 2321-9653; IC Value: 45.98; SJ Impact Factor: 7.538
Volume 11 Issue XI Nov 2023- Available at www.ijraset.com
2717
©IJRASET: All Rights are Reserved | SJ Impact Factor 7.538 | ISRA Journal Impact Factor 7.894 |
Moreover, there was perceptive use of cryptography and encrypted communication, the invention of the radio was what played a
crucial role in shaping the chronology of events across the war. The invention of the radio allowed military intelligence to
effectively communicate with its allies, and their commanders, however, due to loose wireless communication, it had these parties
potentially vulnerable to interception by the enemy. Although the use of cryptography did help both the parties, the speed at which
radio was being adopted, encryption wasn’t paced very well with the same.
There were several events across the war powered by cryptography that led to the war taking an unprecedented course several times.
One of the most predominant examples of the same is the entry of the United States in the war, merely because of the British
decryption of the Zimmermann Telegram by the Germans to Mexico. This led to the formation of the Crypto Arms race, a series of
code breakers that had the advantage in the field of warfare at that time. Another predominant cryptographic application during the
first World War was through the Vigenère disk that employed several substitution ciphers rather than just one like in the Caesar
Cipher. The Vigenère disk comprises the plaintext being partially concealed within the ciphertext using monoalphabetic
substitutions. The use of Vigenère disk was again used for secure communication across the parties and their allies due to the
shortcomings of the radio. Apart from this, another predominant application of cryptography was the Navajo Code that used Native
American Languages as their primary language of communication to and fro their allies. The use of the Navajo language presaged
the use of the same encrypting technique even in World War Two later.
Following world war one, the second world war was one that was geographically, politically, and technologically the most
widespread war in history. This was primarily because it showcased predominant differences in the technology used during the early
1900s or even the first world war compared to the ones used during the second world war in the 1940s. Additionally, this war was
one that effectively pursued unprecedented communication in context to an explicit use of encrypting technologies. The First World
War was one that hit several milestones as soon as Bletchley Park was introduced in England. Bletchley Park was an English
country house located in Milton Keynes which was further pronounced as the principle house for allied code-breaking against
German encryption. Bletchley Park is one of the most profound places that was termed as the birthplace for electronic computing.
The establishment of Bletchley Park was initiated when the infamous computer scientist and mathematician Alan Turing along with
his colleagues wrote a letter to Winston Churchill in pursuit of gathering resources that were required for the preparation of the
following World War. As in when the letter was approved, Bletchley Park became the hub of secrecy and decryption against the
German forces.
One of the most predominant applications of cryptography in the second world war was the usage of the modified Enigma Machine
by the Germans as a way to establish operational communication across their allies and armed forces. With Enigma in the works,
experts at the Bletchley Park including the ones from Poland that were able to crack the exceptionally difficult course on
cryptography at the University of Poznan who were Rejewski, Rjoyski, and Zygaliski. The Polish had already created a code-
breaking/decrypting device named BOMBA before, however, they believed that the Germans would modify the way Enigma would
function ahead of the war which is why they sent their mechanisms and external support that spurred the works at Bletchley Park.
As the Polish provided the working of BOMBA, Alan Turing perceptively understood the weaknesses in the same, resulting in a
creation of a crib based mechanism that further allowed the decrypters to identify inconsistencies in the machine as possible matches
of the converted plaintext with its corresponding ciphertext. As Alan Turing succeeded in this, he further contacted Keen through
which they could cumulatively create BOMBE, an improved version of the Polish BOMBA. Turing required Keen’s help in order to
identify the potential stops, a term associated with possible matches that were priorly scrambled into ciphertext. Simultaneous to the
creation of BOMBE, Alan Turing even focused on identifying the loop holes in Enigma until he figured out that the Enigma wheels
never encoded a letter as the same letter alongwith the fact that Enigma had a 250 characters limit, making many messages to be
sent in packets.
As Keen and Turing created BOMBE, Bletchley Park was successfully able to decrypt all of the messages across their
communication lines. The parties were internally prohibited from using wireless communications fearing interception which is why
there was an initial installment of such mechanisms. As the decryption increased, Adolf Hitler presented an unprecedented machine
that he called Gheimschribers, Lorenz S242 that used teleprinted codes for communication. For a long time Bletchley Park couldn’t
deduce the reason for increased traffic in the communication lines they initially decrypted messages from, however as they did, they
introduced another, the first electronic computer named Colossus. Colossus was built on a deadline by Thomas Flowers who was
told to have it completed by the 1st of June 1944, 4 days prior to the D-Day for Operation Overlord(Battle of Normandy). The quick
assemblage of Colossus helped the parties against Germany critically identify that Hitler had fallen for the subterfuge regarding the
invasion which according to him was now on Pas De Calais and not Normandy. This intelligence was further provided to General
Eisenhower who then claimed the success wouldn’t have been possible without Bletchley Park.
International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
ISSN: 2321-9653; IC Value: 45.98; SJ Impact Factor: 7.538
Volume 11 Issue XI Nov 2023- Available at www.ijraset.com
2718
©IJRASET: All Rights are Reserved | SJ Impact Factor 7.538 | ISRA Journal Impact Factor 7.894 |
C. Modern Computation (Post-war)
As the war ended during the mid 1940s, there was a sudden change in the educational system across the West. It was when the
countries understood that the safest country is the one with the smartest people. With this notion, the countries further established
science and mathematics centers while the Bletchley Park shut and the scientists from there moved to several universities as
professors. Since the works at Bletchley park were a secret until recent times, they were prohibited from sharing their works about
electronic computation and decrypting machinery, however their assistance and presence at these universities paved the way for the
creation of several computers and supercomputers including Manchester Baby, Ferranti Mark I, Harvard Mark I, and US Army
ENIAC. Although these computers kept on getting invented, there was scarcity of resources and a surplus of intelligent minds across
the globe. To solve this, significant individuals such as Larry Smarr contacted Peter Lax to create a Lax Report in pursuit of
resource availability (supercomputers) in universities and other hubs for better technological development.
The introduction of supercomputers caused an increase in the prevalence of cryptography as it helped experts test their decryption
algorithms, identifying weaknesses, and further rectifying them. Apart from this, supercomputers even made newer cryptographic
techniques to be available such as lattice-based cryptography and several others that were possible due to the extremely quick tests
through supercomputers. Ahead of the post war computation, there was the invention of the internet that further expanded the
influence of cryptography in society. Post-war computation resulted in two major breakthroughs known as the public/private key
confidentiality and the cryptographic hash. Both of these are profound methods of encryption that became ubiquitous as other
technologies simultaneously grew. Primarily, in context to the public/private key cryptography, the private key scheme is symmetric
cryptography where the key used for encryption is what is used for decryption. While this is a great way for encryption, it
showcases issues in secure key distribution without external interception.
On the other hand, public key cryptography is when there are two keys used and is considered asymmetric. Public key
cryptosystems are ones that have keys mathematically related to one another wherein the public key is provided to all interested
parties, while the second key, the private key is the ones that needs to be kept secret and to be provided to those who the message is
for. To generate these keys, it is necessary to keep them in pairs, which is why it is essential to choose huge prime numbers and
multiply them. Following this, there is a need for computation via the larger number generated as the product to obtain the public
and private key. Furthermore, following the post war computations, the last breakthrough was the cryptographic hash function
which revolves around an online programming function that converts a huge block of plaintext into a series of numbers as a string as
its digest. The cryptographic hash function checks the integrity of the ciphered text in context to whether or not it has been tampered
with. It is important to note that the input for the cryptographic hash function is variable in size however the digest generated is of a
fixed size.
D. Contemporary Computation (Early 21st Century, Current)
As the 20th Century came to an end, one of the most breakthroughs that took place in the late 1990s was the invention of quantum
computation that spurred extensive growth of cryptography all across the globe in the early 21st Century. The beginning years of the
21st century encountered intellectual theories being presented at an international level on a daily basis with hypotheses enough to
change the course of technology all across the world. Quantum computing was invented in 1998 by Issac Chung of Los Alamos
National Laboratory, Neil Gershenfeld of MIT, and Mark Kubinec of the University of California at Berkeley. Although this initial
invention wasn’t applicable for problem solving and merely incorporated nanoseconds of coherence, it was one that effectively
demonstrated the basic principles of quantum computation in early history. Throughout the history of cryptographic evolution, there
have been three major revolutions that changed its being enormously. It started with the Kings and Queens using basic shift ciphers
that was then revolutionized into the shared key system up until very recently which was now, in the 21st century again
revolutionized into a scheme that operates on asymmetric cryptographic function involving a different key for encryption and a
different one for decryption. This solved the issue of secure key distribution since the public key required zero protection.
With asymmetric key cryptography being one of the most prominent ones in society currently, it is extremely important to
understand that with the extensive research and development currently underway for quantum cryptography, within the next decade,
it is highly likely for quantum computation to take cryptography up an unprecedented level. Currently, there are several algorithms
associated with cryptography that have helped technology to grow exponentially such as Homomorphic encryption, RSA(Rivest-
Shamir-Adleman), Obfuscation, Format-preserving encryption(FPE), Attribute-based encryption(ABE), Elliptic Curve cryptography
(ECC), and Advanced Encryption Standard(AES). Primarily, homomorphic encryption is a kind of encryption that works as an
extended version of traditional encryption and decryption.
International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
ISSN: 2321-9653; IC Value: 45.98; SJ Impact Factor: 7.538
Volume 11 Issue XI Nov 2023- Available at www.ijraset.com
2719
©IJRASET: All Rights are Reserved | SJ Impact Factor 7.538 | ISRA Journal Impact Factor 7.894 |
Using homomorphic encryption, an individual can encrypt a message using any traditional asymmetric encryption, however, it can
also compute and perform different operations on the encrypted message without having to decrypt it at any point in time; this
happens via homomorphic encryption. This kind of encryption was first introduced in 2009 by Craig Gentry and is currently
applicable for several governmental activities such as E-voting and E-cash systems.
Apart from homomorphic encryption, another predominant encryption algorithm prevalent in society revolves around RSA(Rivest-
Shamir-Adleman). This is one of the oldest modern cryptosystems which was first published in 1977. This kind of algorithm works
on the mathematical principle of asymmetric key encryption. The next predominant recently prevalent cryptographic technique is
Obfuscation. Obfuscation works on the means of an obfuscator that can potentially convert straightforward program code or
revealing metadata into one that is rather difficult to comprehend where classes and variables are switched to meaningless terms that
otherwise would make no sense in a programming software/code. To reverse obfuscation, just like any other encryption algorithm,
incorporates of several deobfuscating techniques including slicing that cuts out unimportant bits from the code into the most
relevant lines of code within the program or compiler optimization and program synthesis that even help deobfuscate the
programming code. Additionally, these obfuscating techniques even include adding redundant code, packing, etc that can increase
code secrecy and data security against hackers.
Apart from these, are two other cryptography techniques known as Format-preserving encryption(FPE) and Attribute-based
encryption(ABE) that revolve around data security. Attribute based encryption predominantly revolves around a generalization of
public key cryptography, however, the private key for decryption is often associated with certain attributes technically. This can
primarily be applied to store customer information on the database in a way that within the company only certain management can
view it. In a similar manner, format-preserving encryption(FPE) is one that revolves around data conversion for confidentiality in a
manner that keeps the format the same. For instance, the most appropriate application of FPE is in the security against credit card
numbers. When a customer enters a credit card number for storage, it converts into a different set of numbers that still look like a
credit card number but in reality is just a random set of numbers stored. This allows data confidentiality in several of these banking
activities and systems. Lastly, another exceptionally predominant algorithm in the field of cryptography is ECC, Elliptic Curve
Cryptography that works as an alternative to RSA as another predominant algorithm under public-key cryptography. ECC is a rather
growing public key algorithm since it has a relatively smaller key size and is mathematically more difficult to crack than RSA,
making it more secure and efficient to work with. The uses of ECC are predominant in fields of digital signatures and several others.
III. POSITIVES AND NEGATIVES (IMPLICATIONS)
There are a range of implications associated with all stages of electronic computing that gave rise to several cryptographic
techniques that have had multiple applications for data security, cybersecurity, etc in the technological field. Herewith is the detailed
analysis of Economical, Ethical, Political, and Cultural implications of cryptographic applications on all the 4 stages discussed in the
timeline aforementioned.
A. Pre-computing Age (Ancient Times)
The pre-computing age ranges back to early civilizations like the Egyptian and the Roman period that incorporated basic methods of
cryptography for purposes of secret communication between the royals in society during that time. The pre-computing age gave
birth to a series of cryptographic methods such as the Caesar cipher, hieroglyphics, etc that each had their socio-cultural sentiments
associated with. These methods outline a range of economic, cultural, ethical, and political implications that need to be evaluated.
Primarily, in terms of the Caesar Cipher that was very well introduced during the Roman period highlighted a series of economic
implications predominantly outlining the wheel’s main purpose to secretly communicate during warfare and other military activities.
The introduction to the Caesar cipher paved a way for secure communication that further led to military gains in the form of gold,
silver, and slaves. These economic gains expanded the trade route back in that period for the Romans. The introduction to the
Caesar cipher even spurred the development of cryptography in the following decades as scientists and mathematicians spent years
working on the foundational cipher wheel in order to develop the modern ways of cryptography and encryption that offers stringent
data security and confidentiality. Apart from the economic implication, another predominant implication revolves around the ethical
perspective. While the Caesar cipher was rather a great tool to maintain security and effective communication, it was one that
could’ve resulted in the shift of the power dynamics against the opponent parties, giving them an undue advantage. Although this
can be viewed on a positive note, the question of ethics is predominantly based on the perspective of th