The Presidential Community Enrichment Series at Elizabethtown College continued Tuesday, Feb. 20 with the lecture “An Introduction to Cryptology” by professor of mathematics Dr. Timothy McDevitt.
The luncheon began with an introduction by Executive Director of College Engagement Opportunities Mark Clapper. Clapper gave updates on the College since November, specifically mentioning the new Bowers Center for Sports, Fitness and Well-Being and showing the virtual fly-through of the building.
Once he finished, Clapper introduced McDevitt and the topic for the luncheon: cryptology and how it touches our lives, every single day. McDevitt previously worked for the National Security Agency (NSA) and has been teaching at Etown since 2005.
At the start of his lecture, McDevitt gave an overview of cryptology and its history. Before the computer age, cryptology was used to send secret coded messages between individuals in the military or diplomats.
However, in the modern era, cryptology has evolved considerably, becoming more commonplace than its classical definition.
“You use this every day,” McDevitt said. “You just don’t know it because your devices do it for you.”
McDevitt explained the two terms that fall under the umbrella term of cryptology: cryptography and cryptoanalysis. Cryptography can be described as the “defensive side” of cryptology, coding phrases and information to keep them safe.
However, cryptoanalysis is referred to as the “offensive side” of cryptology, attempting to crack and decode encrypted messages.
After the brief overview, McDevitt then moved on to cover where cryptology is used. He listed places such as the military, government and business sector, but he later elaborated on the true extent of cryptology.
Garage door openers, car keys, cellphones, passwords and email all rely on cryptology to function.
“Who uses cryptology?” McDevitt said. “You do. I do. We all do.”
In cryptology, there are two different cryptosystems. First, there is the private key system. The private key is symmetric, which means two people have the same access to the same messages, like a confidential lock box with two keys.
Then there is the public key, which is asymmetric. The public key is like a mailbox, where anyone can put something inside, but only one person has the key to access the information.
An example of public key encryption would be with a retail website like Amazon, where people can input their credit card information. In this situation, only Amazon can view the information to use in transactions.
Additionally, McDevitt spoke of the security in the Internet’s use of cryptology in the form of the Discrete Logarithm Problem.
The numbers produced by the problem are too large for anyone to crack by hand, and it is nearly impossible for even computers to decrypt. The first example of safe cryptographic exchange was through the Diffie-Hellman key exchange, in which two people can establish a secure, shared key between themselves in an otherwise insecure channel.
Following the lecture, McDevitt opened the floor for a question-and-answer session. Among the questions were concerns over encryption on websites that contain vital and private information, such as credit card information, bank information and other passwords.
Next in the Presidential Community Enrichment Series is the lecture “American Music and the First World War,” which professor of music Dr. E Douglas Bomberger will present March 13.
