AdaCrypt - Vector Cryptography

Entrophy Balances in Cryptography

Scalar Cryptography

Vector Cryptography

Entropy in this context means the negative of structure. It is a unit-less quantity that destroys structure in a reversible data-type exchange. Entropy is an intensive property like temperature, say, related minimally to the amount of structure in the data that has to be destroyed but it must be provided separately by the system as an added resource (according to how much is absent and is needed to be supplied as make-up for the data-type in use) that obscures the structure of the same data. Like temperature, entropy can be strong or weak by degrees in a relative comparison with the structure present.

Data can mean raw encryption data to Alice but what we are most interested is in what it means to Eve, to whom data is now Alice’s transformed cipher-text. This must not contain any residual structure that she can redevelop back into information. Alice must change what she sees as data into what Eve is going to see as data and make sure that there is no structure remaining in the cipher-text that can be coaxed back into life by Eve. This is putting it in a nutshell. Eve’s cryptanalysis methods are massive and she may employ the most powerful computers in the world to run her special, mathematically driven forensic software. The manufacture of this software is a huge industry and is worldwide today with China being the largest importer of it.

‘Make-up’ entropy can be manufactured and the most common ways of doing this in the past have been through 1) randomness, 2) mathematical transformations, 3) entanglement mathematics, 4) obfuscation by means of transpositions of characters from their natural alphabetic position into some displaced position (straight line scalar displacement in block ciphers instead of the much more powerful three-dimensional vector displacement), 5) physical hiding of undisguised messages – steganography. These methods are extremely expensive, are operator intensive and have low efficiency at the end of the day. This cryptography is what is being called scalar cryptography herein by the writer and the intention by him is to promote vector cryptography in its stead that is patently better.

In the diagram for scalar cryptography the point is being made that when the raw encryption data comes with little or no natural entropy then it must all be made up by the cryptographer. That is a hugely laborious and expensive task and at the end of it all, there is still a shortfall that means the cipher has only practically unbreakable secrecy quality to offer for the users’ protection. Worse than that is the stark possibility that cryptanalysts will some day soon, find better ways of breaking down scalar based algorithms and cause an overnight collapse of all national security. It can be said with great certainty that there are people who are working towards that end at the present time. It can be seen also that in the case of vector cryptography no such problem exists and theoretically unbreakable security is guaranteed at the end.

Anecdotal Comment
The reader will notice that its all about giving and taking of ‘structure’, something we were taught by our parents when we first learned to read and write. At that early age the data was the set of 26 letters in the English alphabet and the counting numbers. We learned then that giving structure to data changed it into information. Later we may have learned to play scrabble – a parlour game where we take random sets of data from a bag of tablets and see how much structure we can give this lucky dip to turn it into information so as to score points and perhaps win the game.

Perhaps we do this also many times in everyday life without thinking objectively of what we are actually doing at the time – like remembering the pin number of a credit card, a phone number, a car registration number. We give some mental structure to these numbers before we commit them to memory so as to remember them as information – or else we forget them.

Hopefully, it is not too facile to say we do the reverse when we do not want something to become information to adversaries – that is to take away its structure.

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