Lab 3 – Classic Cryptography

Venue : Makmal Sistem, Building FTMK.
Date : 30-7-2009
Time : 10.00 a.m. – 11.50 a.m.

The lab session this week was about Classic Cryptography. Below are some of the things that I have learnt throughout the lab:

1. Symmetric and Asymmetric Cryptography.


2. Method to do Caesar Cipher.


3. Method to do Vigeneré Cipher.

Mr Zaki started the lab session by giving a brief introduction about Symmetric and Asymmetric Cryptography. After that, we were given two tasks, where task 1 was about Caesar Cipher and task two was about Vigeneré Cipher. Basically, we were applying what we have learnt from yesterday’s lecture and the previous week’s lecture. Hence, I think that this lab was very useful for us to understand the lecture clearer. Actually, there is a simpler way to do the task by using Microsoft Excel. Since we do not know the formula to break the Cipher text, we have to do it manually. However, Mr Zaki gave us the formula and taught us to do it after we have finished both of the tasks. I feel that the formula really helps a lot; the time to solve the tasks became shorter. Before the lecture ended, we were asked to do the self-review questions and submit it as lab report by next week. The third question was very challenging. It was about using kasiski to find the key for the Vigeneré cipher text. This was not taught in the lecture, oh my god, hope that I can to solve it... ...