W3lc0m3 t0 Crypt0 W33k!!

Welcome to Fun with Cryptography!! We are so excited to have you here and to teach you all about crypto! And remember, all of our material that we cover this week will be available on THIS website, so you can come back to it whenever you’d like.

Who Are We?

We are a group of students, faculty, and staff from the from the University of Delaware who are passionate about coding and cybersecurity. This week’s lesson was created by a combination of the UD CyberSecurity Scholars, UD’s K-12 Engineering Outreach Program, Verically Integrated Projects, CS+ Social Good, and the UD startup CyberSecLabs.

What is Cryptography?

Cryptography is the creating and breaking of secret codes. Spies use cryptography to keep national secrets safe!
You can think of it sort of like passing secrete notes that you can only understand if you know the secret language.
In cybersecurity, it’s used to keep your data safe and secure.
Every bug company uses cryptography to protect data, from Facebook to Amazon to Google.
Even small businesses use cryptography.

Cybersecurity and Cryptography

Cryptography is a pillar to Cybersecurity. Without secret codes to keep your data private, there would be no cybersecurity.
Ciphers are one method used in cryptography (we will be focusing on ciphers).
Hashes are another method in cryptography.
Without Cryptography there would be no internet, since the world runs on secret codes!

Jobs

There are many jobs that YOU could get with knowledge of cryptography.
Government Law Enforcement agencies are very interested in cryptography for two reasons: to protect their own information and secrets, and to uncover other secret information like foreign secrets.
Most businesses are also interested in cryptography because they need to protect their own data, their employees’ data, and their customers’ data.
Here are just a few potential jobs that relate to cryptography:

• Working for the NSA
• Working for the Police or other government agencies
• Working for companies to keep their data secure
• Working for companies to delevop secure software

To find out more about possible jobs in this field, follow this link.

Time to Learn!

Now that we’ve introduced ourselves, it’s time to get down to the good stuff.
Below, you will find the links to the each day’s lesson.

Day 1 - Introduction to Ciphers
Day 2 - Introductionon to Modern Crypto and Encryption

• In-depth explanation of number systems (supplemental)

Day 3 - Introduction to Randomness
Day 4 - Putting it All Together

Good luck!