"Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems" is a paper published in 1949 by
Claude Shannon
Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American people, American mathematician, electrical engineering, electrical engineer, and cryptography, cryptographer known as a "father of information theory".
As a 21-year-o ...
discussing
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 adver ...
from the viewpoint of
information theory
Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification (science), quantification, computer data storage, storage, and telecommunication, communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist a ...
. It is one of the foundational treatments (arguably ''the'' foundational treatment) of modern cryptography. It is also a proof that all theoretically unbreakable ciphers must have the same requirements as the
one-time pad
In cryptography, the one-time pad (OTP) is an encryption technique that cannot be cracked, but requires the use of a single-use pre-shared key that is not smaller than the message being sent. In this technique, a plaintext is paired with a ran ...
.
Shannon published an earlier version of this research in the formerly classified report ''A Mathematical Theory of Cryptography,'' Memorandum MM 45-110-02, Sept. 1, 1945, Bell Laboratories.
Bibliography of Claude Elwood Shannon
/ref> This report also precedes the publication of his "A Mathematical Theory of Communication
"A Mathematical Theory of Communication" is an article by mathematician Claude E. Shannon published in '' Bell System Technical Journal'' in 1948. It was renamed ''The Mathematical Theory of Communication'' in the 1949 book of the same name, a sm ...
", which appeared in 1948.
See also
* Confusion and diffusion
* Product cipher
In cryptography, a product cipher combines two or more transformations in a manner intending that the resulting cipher is more secure than the individual components to make it resistant to cryptanalysis.Handbook of Applied Cryptography by Alfred J. ...
* One-time pad
In cryptography, the one-time pad (OTP) is an encryption technique that cannot be cracked, but requires the use of a single-use pre-shared key that is not smaller than the message being sent. In this technique, a plaintext is paired with a ran ...
* Unicity distance
In cryptography, unicity distance is the length of an original ciphertext needed to break the cipher by reducing the number of possible spurious keys to zero in a brute force attack. That is, after trying every possible key, there should be just ...
References
* Shannon, Claude. "Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems", ''Bell System Technical Journal
The ''Bell Labs Technical Journal'' is the in-house scientific journal for scientists of Nokia Bell Labs, published yearly by the IEEE society. The managing editor is Charles Bahr.
The journal was originally established as the ''Bell System Techn ...
'', vol. 28(4), page 656–715, 1949.
* Shannon, Claude. "A Mathematical Theory of Cryptography", Memorandum MM 45-110-02, Sept. 1, 1945, Bell Laboratories.
Notes
https://www.itsoc.org/about/shannon
External links
Online retyped copy of the paper
{{Authority control
History of cryptography
Cryptography publications
1945 in science
1949 documents
1949 in science
1945 documents
Mathematics papers