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CTC Glossary

This lists not only cryptographic terminology, but many terms associated with computers and software development that are used on the site.

AppleEvents

These are a Apple inter-application communication mechanism.

ASCII-armour

The process of converting a binary file into a format that is transmitted without corruption by E-mail and similar transfer processes. There are many forms of ASCII-armour. These include UUencode, MIME, BinHex and PGP's own format.

Big-endian

See endian(ness)

Blowfish

This is a freeware symmetric encryption algorithm by Bruce Schneier.

C

A computer programming language. CTClib is written in C, as is Unix.

CTC

This is the name of a PGP compatible cryptographic library written by Ian Miller using a PGP compatible library development by Ian Miller and Mr. Tines. The name is ROT13 of "PGP".

Cyphertext

This is the cryptographic term for an encrypted document. c.f. Plaintext

DLL

Dynamic Linked Library: This is a Microsoft-Windows file that can be used as building block for constructing applications.

Endian(ness)

The definition of whether numbers are stored with the most significant byte or least significant byte first. Motorola machines and Internet protocols stored numbers most significant byte first, a.k.a. big-endian. Intel machines and VAXen are essentially unique in storing numbers least significant byte first, a.k.a. little-endian.

Eudora

A E-mail application for both Macintosh and PC. It is available from Qualcomm in both freeware and Professional versions.

FTP

File Transfer Protocol: An Internet protocol for transfering files. Most of the CTC files are available by FTP.

FSF

Free Software Foundation: An organisation dedicated to the writing and distribution of free software. Notable for writing the GPL.

GLPL

General Library Public Licence: A variant of the GPL for library software.

GPG

GNU Privacy Guard: GNU replacement for PGP. At the beginning of 1998, they were producing an entirely incompatible program, that would not interoperate with any main stream PGP implementation. They now (January 1999) claim to nearly  comply with the OpenPGP standard. I understand that is is providing PGP5 interoperability on the new algorithms only. Hence this is not interoperable with PGP2.x variants. It is however interoperable with CTC. See their web-site for more details.

GPL

General Public Licence: A standard software licence for freeware published by FSF.

GUI

Graphical User Interface: The type of user-interface that is found on most modern programs using menus, and windows.

GWT

Gadget Windowing Toolkit (a lightweight GUI component library useable with JDK 1.0 and above);freeware distributed under the GLPL.

Hybrid Encryption

This describes any cryptographic system using a combination of symmetric encryption to encrypt the bulk of the plaintext that needs to be transmitted and public key encryption to transmit the key used for the symmetric encryption. As it good practice to change symmetric keys often the usual arrangement is to use key symmetric key only for a single message. Such once use keys are known as session keys.

Java

A computer language pioneered by Sun Microsystems. It is designed to allow the development of program where the executable is portable. (By contrast, the source for C can be portable, but a new executable must build for each type of machine.)

JDK

Java Development Kit: A collection of files and utilities for developing Java programs.

JNI

Java Native Interface: It defines the way that a Java program can call programs written in languages like C.

Little-endian

See endian(ness)

PGP

Pretty Good Privacy - The encryption application by Philip Zimmermann. (the name is now a trademark of Network Associates)

PKE

Public Key Encryption - A type of encryption system where their are two separate keys. A public key that is published and hence can be used by anyone to encrypt a message, and a secret key that is known only to the holder which is necessary for decryption.

Plaintext

This is the cryptographic term for the original (or post-decryption) form of and encrypted document. c.f. Cyphertext.

IDEA

International Data Encryption Algorithm - This is a symmetric encryption algorithm. This algorithm is patented in most countries and although non-commerical is free, a licence is required from the patent holders for commerical use.

ROT13

"Rotate 13"; this is not an encryption algorithm but a single method of obscuring meaning. It consists of shifting every letter 13 positions through the alphabet. As there are 26 letters doing this twice returns the text to its original form, so ROT13 is its own inverse.

RSA

Rivest, Shamir & Adelman - This is the PKE algorithm of choice for most purposes. It is the algorithm used by PGP 2.6 and currently the only PGP-compatible one completely available in CTC. It is patented in the USA by RSA Data Security Inc.

Session Key

See hybrid encryption

Symmetric Encryption

Also called conventional encryption, this is any encryption system where the same key is use for both encryption and decryption. This requires that the key must be securely transmitted between the encryptor and decryptor.