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This outlines the gronsfeld cipher, which is a modification of the vigenere cipher. I like and find this cipher interesting because of it using numbers instead of letters, and I like cryptography which uses numbers.

Interesting. Gronsfeld ciphers then form a subset of Vigenere ciphers. That is, there's a one-to-one correspondence between Gronsfeld ciphers and Vigenere ciphers where keywords are formed from the letters A through J.

Not directly involving cryptography, but the implications of this definitely affect the field. Now that we have the capability to generate truly random number strings, our ability to encrypt data will improve.

Bernoulli numbers are a sequence of numbers important to the field of number theory, trigonometric expansions, and analysis. Ada Lovelace wrote a theoretical program to calculate these that would work on Charles Babbage's unfinished Analytical Engine. It's pretty interesting how Lovelace was a "leading figure" in the now massively male-dominated computer programming field, but didn't receive recognition for her work until fairly recently.

See also Riley's bookmark and my comments on it.

Here's just some more information about Ada Lovelace because she's pretty cool.

I thought this article was interesting because it mentioned Ada's childhood imagination and inventions. It's interesting to consider what she could've done if she had grown up in a different place or at a different time. Also, the article mentioned that there was a computer program named "Ada" after her and I thought it was pretty cool that she's beginning to be recognized more and more. (Sorry, I don't know why this comment wasn't here earlier. It's in my original Diigo bookmark.)

What really stood out to me about this article was that they said the NSA actually pays more attention to those people who use encryption. So, in order to protect ourselves and also avoid prying NSA eyes, we should encourage people to stand in solidarity with encryption. I thought this was really interesting because I always thought that encryption would undoubtedly make everything more secure, but here they're saying that it actually attracts attention (which isn't necessarily a good thing).

When I was a kid, I read an issue of Superman in which he faces Batman's villain, the Joker. At one point, the Joker tells Superman that he's kidnapped all of Superman's best friends (Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and so on) and locked them inside lead-lined caskets, hidden throughout Metropolis. Since the caskets are air-tight, they only have an hour to live, and Superman can't find them because his x-ray vision can't see through lead! That's what the Joker said. Actually, since Superman can't see through lead, those caskets *stood out* when he scanned the city with his x-ray vision, and he rescued all his friends in short order. Same basic idea.

You can find anything on the Internet: http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/superjoker6.jpg.

This website discusses procedure and purpose of encrypting sensitive data over the internet. SSL is a protocol which "determines variables of the encryption" being used to protect information from first names to credit card numbers. This website also tells you how to determine whether or not a website is secure or if your information is vulnerable. In addition, there is another page that delves into the mathematics and actual cryptography procedures behind online encryption like RSA and ECC.

This website provides ample information on not only the ins and outs of public information but it also gives helpful suggestions on how to keep things private and why. One interesting suggestion discussed the risks of posting your birthday as identity thieves can predict your Social Security number based off of your place of birth and birthdate.

College students should be on the lookout for breaches in their social media accounts. In this digital age, college kids put most of their information on their social media accounts and should take the necessary precautions to create secure passwords.

This article discusses how there needs to be advanced cryptography in many facets of life for a person in the modern era from credit cards to phone calls to ATMS. It also describes how encryption uses such a large number of combinations, a brute force attack will never worm