Portrait of Lord Melvyn Bragg, host of In Our Time

Cryptography

Cryptography, or cryptology (from Ancient Greek: κρυπτός, romanized: kryptós "hidden, secret"; and γράφειν graphein, "to write", or -λογία -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.

2 episodes

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  1. Cryptography

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the history of codes including the Caesar cipher, the ‘uncrackable’ Vigenere code, the Enigma machine and the cryptography that underwrites the information age.

    29 January 2004

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    Featuring: Simon Singh, Fred Piper, Lisa Jardine

     
  2. Random and Pseudorandom

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss mathematical randomness and pseudorandomness, ideas important to cryptography, statistics and weather forecasting.

    13 January 2011

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    Featuring: Marcus du Sautoy, Colva Roney-Dougal, Timothy Gowers