Introduction to cryptography

In this section, we will learn what cryptography is and how it has evolved historically.

Now, we get to the crypto part of cryptocurrencies, which is a well-publicized term you've probably heard plenty of times over the last year or so. This sounds a bit mysterious, or, a bit… cryptic… doesn't it? Many of you have probably heard the word cryptography, but how many actually know what it involves?

In brief, cryptography is the science of secure communication. It is useful in order to secure private information from being accessed by unauthorized third parties who can potentially act in bad faith. The process involves two main steps:

1. The first step is encryption, which consists of scrambling the information, so that only the intended recipient can access it
2. The next step is decryption, which is unscrambling the encrypted information...