Module 7

Applications of Linear equations

 An Introduction to coding
 Classical Cryptosystems
 Plain Text
 Cipher Text
 Encryption, Decryption
Ref: Elementary Linear Algebra Applications Version, Howard Anton, Chris Rorres, Anton Kau L, 12th edition
 Introduction

The study of encoding and decoding secret messages is called

cryptography
 Few Definitions
• In the language of cryptography, codes are called ciphers.
• Uncoded messages are called plaintext.
• Coded messages are called ciphertext.
• The process of converting from plaintext to ciphertext is
called enciphering.
• The reverse process of converting from ciphertext to plaintext
is called deciphering.
Substitution Ciphers
The simplest ciphers, called substitution ciphers, are those that
replace each letter of the alphabet by a different letter. For
example, in the substitution cipher

the plaintext letter is replaced by , the plaintext letter by ,

and so forth. With this cipher the plaintext message

ROME WAS NOT BUILT IN A DAY

becomes
URPH ZDV QRW EXLOW LQ D GDB
 Encoding Part

Suppose, we want to send a message “GOOD LUCK” to on of my friend.

Therefore, this message cane be written as with the help of above replacements

Suppose, me and my friend chosen an encoding matrix A to decode our conversations

 Encoding Part
To make it difficult to crake the code by others, we break the enumerated message into
a sequence of 3 by 1 vectors (since we are using a 3 by 3 matrix decode matrix)

Note: that it was necessary to add a space at the end of the message to complete the last vector.

Then, after multiplying matrix A into these above vectors, we can get the converted
message
 Dencoding Part
 My friend can decode this message as; he will use inverse of the matrix A
 Dencoding Part

 Suppose, if he is replied by the following message

 Then, encode his message for me