Knowledge check
10 questions testing what you just read — no login, no tracking, just immediate feedback.
Which of the four core properties can a MAC (message authentication code) NOT provide, even though it authenticates a message?
Who documented the first systematic method for breaking substitution ciphers, around 850 CE?
What specific property did Shannon prove the one-time pad achieves, that AES, RSA, and ECC do not?
What assumption made ancient ciphers like the scytale and Caesar cipher fragile once someone studied them carefully?
What two developments, within about a year of each other, ended the era this module covers and started the rest of this catalog?
Who is credited with first describing, in 1553, the polyalphabetic cipher later misattributed to and popularly known after Blaise de Vigenère?
Who privately broke the "indecipherable" polyalphabetic cipher around 1854, without publishing the result?
Enigma was first broken not by the famous Bletchley Park effort, but earlier — by whom?
What specific span of time does this site mean by "classical" cryptography?
What statistical property did Al-Kindi's frequency analysis exploit to break substitution ciphers?