Introduction to Cryptography: keeping your Password safe...

Encryption is an easy way to hide a password in plain sight. With the knowledge of cryptography you can have a password book that keeps your password safe.

Why do you need this:

Besides your Steemit passwords, what other information may need this:

• If you have a number of Email accounts, their username and password.
• If you bank with different banks, the bank, your account name and type with associated pass codes.
• username and password for accounts in LinkedIn, SlideShare, Microsoft educator, Pinterest and etc.
• The location and pass code to one or a number of safety deposit boxes
• Little comments or stories that can't be left on the open.
• there is always something that has to be protected and this knowledge offers you the opportunity to hide it in plain sight.

This is my password book, with the knowledge of cryptography, it's safe to label it a password book, it can be kept "carelessly" knowing that it's content is protected by cryptography. It is safe to snap and publish it's content.

In this post I will be using some terms I wish to explain.

Terminologies:

Cypher |
The technique or method used to turn the readable information (" here called plaintext") in to an unreadable form called "ciphertext". The process of using a cypher to scramble Information is called encrypting the act is encryption.

Plain text |
The main information or password you are trying to hide is called a plaintext.

Key |
Like a password that will help you get back the readable text while making the cypher text very hard to decipher.

Cyphertext |
Once you scramble plain text using a cypher, the unreadable text you get is called Cyphertext.

Procedures

I will start by selecting a suitable cypher. The Columnar Transposition Cypher will be good enough for this exercise. This cypher takes in the plaintext row by row then gives out the resulting Cyphertext column by column.

Our plain text this time is our Steemit password(s) which we are trying to encrypt. Let's say the pass word is " once upon a time in a place far far away" all lowercase, with no spaces.
Having no space between the words gives us [ onceuponatimeinaplacefarfaraway ]

I will use a table with six column. The fact that we used a Columnar Transposition Cypher on a six column table could be kept secret. The key is 162354

This is our table

Here we have entered the first six characters. The data is entered from left to right then down.

Followed by another six.

All characters are entered and we have 5 cells left. I will fill it with the following: 3 z x x 3

I will now write out what I have downward from column 1 6 2 3 5 4 this is what will make the encryption hard to crack. You can choose any key sequence when encrypting your data.

Coping out the content of column 1

_ooeafy

Coping out column 6

_pmlra3

Coping out column 2

_nnica3

Coping out column 3
_canerz

Coping out column 5

_uipawx

Coping out column 4

_etafax

After all 6 columns are copied

That now gives us ooeafy pmlra3 nnica3 canerz uipawx etafax

Plaintext
onceuponatimeinaplacefarfaraway

Cypher text
ooeafypmlra3nnica3canerzuipawxetafax

The cypher text can now be safely copied into the password diary and labelled Steemit password.

Decryption

To reverse the encryption, you need a 6 X 6 table and the key 1 6 2 3 5 4

Pick the encrypted text and fill it down column 1

the first set of six characters will fill in to column 1

Then fill in Column 6

according to the key, the second set of six will go in to column 6

Followed by Column 2

this fills in to column 2 so we have 3, 5 and 4 remaining.

Then Column 3

Fill in Column 5

And finally Column 4

Now reading the table row by row from top to bottom gives us the original plaintext

onceuponatimeinaplacefarfaraway

Conclusion

With this knowledge, you can protect the content of your diary. To hide stuff is not the only way to protect some things you can try hiding it in plain sight using cryptography.