The amazing secret of Cryptography, Cryptocurrencies, Blockchain, and Bitcoin
Bitcoin, Altcoins, Tokens
The Cryptography
We use cryptography every day without even realizing it. In the modern world, cryptography offers many different possibilities of using. In addition to the obvious transfer of information, it is used in cellular communications, paid digital television, Wi-Fi, in the transport industry, to protect tickets from fakes, in banking transactions and even to protect email from spam. But let’s take a look at the history of this science, which has always been enveloped in mystery, and what is the hot thema of last years.
The history of cryptography is about 4 thousand years old. The first known use of cryptography is considered to be the use of special hieroglyphs about 4000 years ago in Ancient Egypt. Examples of the use of cryptography can be found in the sacred Jewish books, including the book of the prophet Jeremiah (VI century BC), where a simple method of encryption called atbash was used. Skitala, the “cipher of ancient Sparta,” is also one of the oldest known cryptographic devices.
The word ‘cryptography’ was coined by combining two Greek words, ‘Krypto’ meaning hidden and ‘graphene’ meaning writing. The science of concealing the messages to introduce secrecy in information security (Unauthorized people could not extract any information), data integration (impossibility of imperceptible change of information), authentication (verification of the authorship or other properties of the object), and the impossibility of refusal of authorship.
Initially, cryptography studied methods of information encryption – a reversible transformation of open (source) text based on a secret algorithm or key into encrypted text (ciphertext).In addition to primitive ciphers, in history has been also another approach – the complete replacement of one alphabet (for example, Cyrillic alphabet) by another (for example, Greek). Without a key that compares the source and used alphabets, it was impossible to read the inscription.
From the beginning to the middle of the 20th century, the work of cryptographers improves and facilitates electromechanical devices. During the period of World War II, cryptography became excessively mathematical. Famous mathematicians were involved in this activity (for example, Claude Shannon in the USA, Alan Turing in England, Hans Rohrbach in Germany, Alexander Osipovich Gelfond in the USSR) With the arrival of computers, at the intersection of mathematics and computer science, cryptography forms a separate scientific direction. Works in this field are published in scientific journals, take place at regular conferences.
The practical application of cryptography has become an integral part of the life of modern society – it is used in such industries as electronic commerce, electronic document management (including digital signatures), telecommunications, and others.
The current period of development of cryptography (from the late 1970s to the present) is characterized by the emergence and development of a new direction – public key cryptographyIn addition to the obvious transfer of information, it is used in cellular communications, paid digital television, Wi-Fi, in the transport industry, to protect tickets from fakes, in banking transactions and even to protect email from spam.
Blockchain is a growing list of records, called blocks, that are linked using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data. The first blockchain was conceptualized by a person (or group of people) known as Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. The design was implemented the following year by Nakamoto as a core component of the cryptocurrency bitcoin, where it serves as the public ledger for all transactions on the network.
However, cryptography is also connected to another industry that is a mystery to many people: Cryptocurrencies, Blockchain, and Bitcoin.
Bitcoin was the first blockchain-based cryptocurrency, which still remains the most popular and most valuable. Today, there are thousands of alternate cryptocurrencies with various functions and specifications. Some of these are clones or forks of Bitcoin, while others are new currencies that were built from scratch. The second main other cryptocurrencies – Altcoins: include Litecoin, Peercoin, and Namecoin, as well as Ethereum, Cardano, and EOS.
The third type of cryptocurrency is Token. They do not have their own blockchain. They are used on dApps (decentralized applications); these are the apps built on blockchains like Ethereum and NEO. The dApps are built to use smart contracts. Bitcoin was launched in 2009. As of Nov. 2019, there were over 18 million bitcoins in circulation with a total market value of around $165 billion. Today, the aggregate value of all the cryptocurrencies in existence is around $245 billion Bitcoin currently represents more than 65% of the total value.
How to use Bitcoin: To get started, acquire some Bitcoin from an online exchange. Then set up a digital wallet to store your Bitcoin. From that point, send your Bitcoin to the wallet of an individual or merchant if you want to use it to pay for goods or services. You can also save your Bitcoin as an investment or trade it for other cryptocurrencies on an online exchange.
Ledger is the first and only certified hardware wallet on the market, certified for its security by ANSSI, the French cyber security agency.
