Substitution ciphers, AES, military encryption devices, hashing, PKI, symmetric key algorithms, RSA, salted hash, twofish and WPA. How well do you know these and other words regarding encryption?

Well, this is the big question – or should I say ten questions you have to answer to get top score in this encryption quiz from Network World. You won’t get any title or diploma, but you should at least get some competence in a strange area for many people. Everyone should once in a while touch a new area, and this might be your chance to get new knowledge. Just click on the picture below to start the quiz.

Before diving into the quiz, I should give you a definition of encryption from Wikipedia: “Encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key. The result of the process is encrypted information. The reverse process, i.e., to make the encrypted information readable again, is referred to as decryption.”

Encryption is part of the area cryptography, and the history of cryptography began thousands of years ago. You should read this quotation from the history:

“The earliest known use of cryptography is found in non-standard hieroglyphs carved into monuments from the Old Kingdom of Egypt circa 1900 BC. These are not thought to be serious attempts at secret communications, however, but rather to have been attempts at mystery, intrigue, or even amusement for literate onlookers.These are examples of still other uses of cryptography, or of something that looks like it. Some clay tablets from Mesopotamia somewhat later are clearly meant to protect information – one dated near 1500 BC was found to encrypt a craftsman’s recipe for pottery glaze, presumably commercially valuable. Later still, Hebrew scholars made use of simple monoalphabetic substitution ciphers beginning perhaps around 500 to 600 BC.”

Now you’re ready for the quiz: Just click on the picture below to go to the web site with the quiz. If you want more quiz, click here and here. Good luck! :-)