Computer Science Homework Help

After watching the videos in class, explain what is encryption and cryptography and what are the practical uses for encryption and cryptography in your discipline? Start your discussion indicating your major and field of study; then explain with examples, the terms encryption and cryptography. Include the underlying methods in each topic. Next discuss what is a cryptographic attack. Finally, discuss the practical uses in your discipline/ field of study. Ensure you cite examples. 

Your initial post should be at least 3 paragraphs; with your responses at least 1 paragraph.

* Remember to comment on 2 other posts.

Resource:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqgtdkURzTE (Links to an external site.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jpgMXt1Z9Y (Links to an external site.)
https://www.synopsys.com/glossary/what-is-cryptography.html (Links to an external site.)
https://www.commonlounge.com/discussion/4c8ace459d1840408e487a673cca255d (Links to an external site.)

First reply:

As a global security and intelligence major encryption and cryptography are the back bone of my discipline. The OSS was birthed during WWII and their main objective was codes. In layman’s terms encryption is one big barrier to entry, encryption makes it as difficult as it can to stop anyone from breaking in. data encryption takes the data and changes it to something else also known as ciphertext, only the decryption key can change it to plaintext. This process is called cryptography.

Methods for encryption vary and it depends on how secure the data needs to be. Essentially what encryption does is it masks the data. The existing data is covered by a bunch of ones and zeros, the data won’t be shown until the data is changed back to plaintext.

Encryption falls into many aspects of a layered security model but most importantly it lies at the core of the data security model. If your data is not encrypted properly your data is at risk. The other layers are pretty much useless if the core is unsecure.

Second reply:

I am majoring in forensic biology and plan to study many forensic sciences. These include commuter forensics, and forensic psychology and chemistry. Any method of forensic science needs the CIA security goals. However confidentiality and integrity are very important in protecting evidence. These can be accomplished using cryptography and encryption. Some examples of cryptology is symmetric and asymmetric cryptography. An example of encryption is block cipher. However what exactly are these?

Cryptography is the method of encrypting communication. This is done in order to secure the communication that is occurring to protect it from anyone who is trying to interfere maliciously. They can interfere by just reading the communications, or changing the messages so that what is received by the person it is to, is not what the original sender sent to them. Encryption is the method of coding data for security purposes. This helps to block unauthorized users from accessing the data. Even if they do access it, if it is encrypted they would be unable, or it would be challenging for them, to decode the data. Block cipher encryption is a way to encrypt blocks of data, rather than tiny segments or bits. Symmetric cryptography is the method of encrypting and decrypting communication with one key that is shared between the communicators. Asymmetric cryptography is used by encrypting and decrypting communication with two keys. This is done when the sender encrypts the data using the receiver’s public key, and then the receiver decrypts it with their personal private key. Now how is this applied directly to the forensic sciences?

Forensics deals with evidence and uses science to prove crime occurred, by a certain individual and how it occurred. Forensics is a powerful tool for the criminal justice system, however it can very easily be tampered with. A forensic scientist, or a detective can handle evidence wrong. This is done by human error. However because forensics deals with criminals, someone who committed a crime might try to tamper with evidence to hid the proof they committed a crime. The obvious ways are through washing blood out of the carpet, but it can also be done digitally. Some attacks that can take place are brute-force, man-in-the-middle, replay, side-channel, power analysis, and timing attack. Luckily as forensics is normally done through the government, it is kept highly secure with high tech protection. The risk is still there unfortunately as it always will be, but the risk is diminished by using encryption and cryptography. One of the ways this can be done is through hashing. When hashing, a value is assigned to the data. If the data changes, the hash also changes. This can help integrity to prove that the data was not altered. This is especially useful in a court of law to prove the evidence has not been tampered with. Forensic scientists have to communicate with agents on the evidence. If a DNA match is made, the agent will need to know this. If someone made a man-in-the-middle attack they can receive that information too, as well as any other forensic information passed through in communication. One way to prevent this is asymmetric encryption, especially on digital signatures. Non-reputation is highly important when lives are on the line and evidence matters significantly.