Cryptography

High school (ages 12+)
Science & Technology

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/cryptography

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the core principles?Confidentiality, integrity, authenticity, and non-repudiation are the primary goals of cryptographic systems
2. What is the modern standard (symmetric)?Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is a widely adopted symmetric-key encryption algorithm
3. How does a secret key help keep messages safe?In symmetric-key cryptography, the same secret key is used to lock and unlock the message. Only someone who knows the key can read the hidden message.
4. Why do we use public-key cryptography?Public-key cryptography uses a pair of keys: a public key that anyone can use to lock a message, and a private key that only the owner can use to unlock it. This lets people share secret keys safely over the internet.

Public-Key Cryptography: Uses a pair of keys: a public key for encryption and a private key for decryption, enabling secure communication without pre-shared secrets.
Hash Function: A one-way mathematical function that takes an input and produces a fixed-size output, used for data integrity checks.
Digital Signature: A cryptographic mechanism used to verify the authenticity and integrity of a digital message or document.