|
National Cipher Challenge
The National Cipher Challenge is an annual cryptographic competition organised by the University of Southampton School of Mathematics. Competitors attempt to break cryptograms published on the competition website. In the 2017, more than 7,500 students took part in the competition. Participants must be in full-time school level education in order to qualify for prizes. Format The competition is organised into eight to ten challenges, which are further subdivided into parts A and B. The part A challenge consists of a comparatively simpler cryptogram, and usually provides some useful information to assist in the solving of part B. Part B is usually more complex. In later challenges the cryptograms become harder to break. In the past, part A cryptograms have been encrypted with the Caesar cipher, the Affine cipher, the Keyword cipher, the Transposition cipher, the Vigenère cipher and the 2x2 Hill cipher. The part B challenges are intended to be harder. These begin with relativel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cryptography
Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adversarial behavior. More generally, cryptography is about constructing and analyzing protocols that prevent third parties or the public from reading private messages. Modern cryptography exists at the intersection of the disciplines of mathematics, computer science, information security, electrical engineering, digital signal processing, physics, and others. Core concepts related to information security ( data confidentiality, data integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation) are also central to cryptography. Practical applications of cryptography include electronic commerce, chip-based payment cards, digital currencies, computer passwords, and military communications. Cryptography prior to the modern age was effectively synonymo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solitaire Cipher
The Solitaire cryptographic algorithm was designed by Bruce Schneier at the request of Neal Stephenson for use in his novel ''Cryptonomicon'', in which field agents use it to communicate securely without having to rely on electronics or having to carry incriminating tools. It was designed to be a manual cryptosystem calculated with an ordinary deck of playing cards. In ''Cryptonomicon'', this algorithm was originally called Pontifex to hide the fact that it involved playing cards. One of the motivations behind Solitaire's creation is that in totalitarian environments, a deck of cards is far more affordable (and less incriminating) than a personal computer with an array of cryptological utilities. However, as Schneier warns in the appendix of ''Cryptonomicon'', just about everyone with an interest in cryptanalysis will now know about this algorithm, so carrying a deck of cards may also be considered incriminating. Furthermore, analysis has revealed flaws in the cipher such that it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
EPSRC
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is a British Research Council that provides government funding for grants to undertake research and postgraduate degrees in engineering and the physical sciences, mainly to universities in the United Kingdom. EPSRC research areas include mathematics, physics, chemistry, artificial intelligence and computer science, but exclude particle physics, nuclear physics, space science and astronomy (which fall under the remit of the Science and Technology Facilities Council). Since 2018 it has been part of UK Research and Innovation, which is funded through the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. History EPSRC was created in 1994. At first part of the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC), in 2018 it was one of nine organisations brought together to form UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Its head office is in Swindon, Wiltshire in the same building (Polaris House) that houses the AHRC, BBSRC, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winton Capital Management
Winton Group, Ltd (which includes Winton Capital Management) is a British investment management firm founded by David Harding. In the United States, Winton is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission as an investment advisor and with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as a CTA, and is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK. The company trades on more than 100 global futures markets in a wide variety of asset classes and on global equity markets. The firm was launched with $1.6 million in 1997, reached a peak of $28.5 billion in assets under advisement, before dropping to 7.3 billion by late 2020. Winton Group has seven offices around the world: London, New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Shanghai, Sydney, and Abu Dhabi. History Early years In 1996, physicist and investment manager David Harding left Man AHL (formerly Adam, Harding and Lueck), a systematic managed futures fund and created Winton. Using Harding's middle name, the firm began trading in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing house specializing in monographs and scholarly journals. Most are nonprofit organizations and an integral component of a large research university. They publish work that has been reviewed by schola ... in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Press is a department of the University of Cambridge and is both an academic and educational publisher. It became part of Cambridge University Press & Assessment, following a merger with Cambridge Assessment in 2021. With a global sales presence, publishing hubs, and offices in more than 40 Country, countries, it publishes over 50,000 titles by authors from over 100 countries. Its publishing includes more than 380 academic journals, monographs, reference works, school and uni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or University of Oxford, Oxford. Trinity has some of the most distinctive architecture in Cambridge with its Trinity Great Court, Great Court said to be the largest enclosed courtyard in Europe. Academically, Trinity performs exceptionally as measured by the Tompkins Table (the annual unofficial league table of Cambridge colleges), coming top from 2011 to 2017. Trinity was the top-performing college for the 2020-21 undergraduate exams, obtaining the highest percentage of good honours. Members of Trinity have been awarded 34 Nobel Prizes out of the 121 received by members of Cambridge University (the highest of any college at either Oxford or Cambridge). Members of the college have received four Fields Medals, one Turing Award and one Abel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Computer Society
Sir Maurice Wilkes served as the first President of BCS in 1957 BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, known as the British Computer Society until 2009, is a professional body and a learned society that represents those working in information technology (IT) and computer science, both in the United Kingdom and internationally. Founded in 1957, BCS has played an important role in educating and nurturing IT professionals, computer scientists, computer engineers, upholding the profession, accrediting chartered IT professional status, and creating a global community active in promoting and furthering the field and practice of computing. Overview With a worldwide membership of 57,625 members as of 2021, BCS is a registered charity and was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1984. Its objectives are to promote the study and application of communications technology and computing technology and to advance knowledge of education in ICT for the benefit of professional practitioners a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
GCHQ
Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom. Primarily based at "The Doughnut" in the suburbs of Cheltenham, GCHQ is the responsibility of the country's Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Foreign Secretary), but it is not a part of the Foreign Office and its Director ranks as a Permanent Secretary. GCHQ was originally established after the First World War as the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) and was known under that name until 1946. During the Second World War it was located at Bletchley Park, where it was responsible for breaking the German Enigma codes. There are two main components of the GCHQ, the Composite Signals Organisation (CSO), which is responsible for gathering information, and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Programming
Computer programming is the process of performing a particular computation (or more generally, accomplishing a specific computing result), usually by designing and building an executable computer program. Programming involves tasks such as analysis, generating algorithms, profiling algorithms' accuracy and resource consumption, and the implementation of algorithms (usually in a chosen programming language, commonly referred to as coding). The source code of a program is written in one or more languages that are intelligible to programmers, rather than machine code, which is directly executed by the central processing unit. The purpose of programming is to find a sequence of instructions that will automate the performance of a task (which can be as complex as an operating system) on a computer, often for solving a given problem. Proficient programming thus usually requires expertise in several different subjects, including knowledge of the application domain, specialized algori ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes ( Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following 1883 for the financier and politician Sir Herbert Leon in the Victorian Gothic, Tudor, and Dutch Baroque styles, on the site of older buildings of the same name. During World War II, the estate housed the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), which regularly penetrated the secret communications of the Axis Powersmost importantly the German Enigma and Lorenz ciphers. The GC&CS team of codebreakers included Alan Turing, Gordon Welchman, Hugh Alexander, Bill Tutte, and Stuart Milner-Barry. The nature of the work at Bletchley remained secret until many years after the war. According to the official historian of British Intelligence, the "Ultra" intelligence produced at Bletchley shortened the war by two to four years, and without it th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Playfair Cipher
The Playfair cipher or Playfair square or Wheatstone–Playfair cipher is a manual symmetric encryption technique and was the first literal digram substitution cipher. The scheme was invented in 1854 by Charles Wheatstone, but bears the name of Lord Playfair for promoting its use. The technique encrypts pairs of letters (''bigrams'' or ''digrams''), instead of single letters as in the simple substitution cipher and rather more complex Vigenère cipher systems then in use. The Playfair is thus significantly harder to break since the frequency analysis used for simple substitution ciphers does not work with it. The frequency analysis of bigrams is possible, but considerably more difficult. With 600 possible bigrams rather than the 26 possible monograms (single symbols, usually letters in this context), a considerably larger cipher text is required in order to be useful. History The Playfair cipher was the first cipher to encrypt pairs of letters in cryptologic history. Wheat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.png "Click for more on -> Playfair Cipher")