cryptography
- 1The field concerned with keeping communication secure: protecting the secrecy of messages, confirming who sent them, and making sure they aren't altered along the way.
Like a locked box that only the people holding the right key can open and read.
Modern cryptography underpins everything from secure messaging apps to online banking.
She studied cryptography to understand how encrypted data resists tampering.
Similarcryptology
Note
The name means "hidden writing," from crypto- and -graphy, yet the discipline reaches well beyond secrecy. It also proves who sent a message, shows that it arrived unaltered, and stops a sender from later denying it, whether by pencil or by computer. It forms one part of the wider field of cryptology. Sir Thomas Browne used the word in 1658, and in Benjamin Wallace's 2011 Wired piece on bitcoin it labels an online mailing list.
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Origin
Formed from the combining forms "crypto-" (hidden, secret) and "-graphy" (writing).