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Codes, not ciphers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

John Baylis
John Baylis*
Affiliation:
Ysgol Steiner, Nant-y-Cwm, Llanycefn, Clunderwen SA66 7QJ
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Extract

This article is written as a companion piece to the recent account of cryptography in [1]. The aim will be similar—to explain the meaning and principles of coding, give some implementations that are feasible at school and early undergraduate level, and give a flavour of the types of mathematics involved.

2. Cryptography and coding—What's the difference?

Cryptography concerns the transmission of secret or sensitive information in such a way that if intercepted en route by an ‘enemy’, that enemy will be incapable of understanding it and therefore be prevented from using it for any political, financial, military or other advantage.

Type
Articles
Information
The Mathematical Gazette , Volume 94 , Issue 531 , November 2010 , pp. 412 - 425
Copyright
Copyright © The Mathematical Association 2010

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References

1. Lewand, Robert Edward, The perfect cipher, Math. Gaz. 94 (November 2010) pp. 401–411.10.1017/S0025557200001698Google Scholar
2. McEliece, R. J., The reliability of computer memories, Scientific American 252(1) (1985) pp. 88–95.10.1038/scientificamerican0185-88Google Scholar
3. Baylis, John, Error-correcting codes, a mathematical introduction, Chapman and Hall (1998).10.1007/978-1-4899-3276-1Google Scholar
4. Hill, Raymond, A first course in coding theory, Oxford University Press (1986).Google Scholar
5. Macwilliams, F. J. and Sloane, N. J. A., The theory of error-correcting codes, North-Holland (1993).Google Scholar
6. Vanstone, Scott A. and van Oorschot, Paul C., An introduction to error correcting codes with applications, Kluwer (1992).Google Scholar