Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems

Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems is a paper published by Claude Shannon discussing cryptography from the viewpoint of information theory. It is one of the foundational treatments (primitives) of modern cryptography. It is also a proof that all theoretically unbreakable (un-crack-able) ciphers must have the same requirements as the one-time pad encryption algorithm.

Shannon published an earlier version of this research in the classified report A Mathematical Theory of Cryptography, Memorandum MM 45-110-02, Sept. 1, 1945, Bell Laboratories.^[1][2]

In 1948, Shannon published his great paper "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" which is considered one of the founding works of the field of information theory.

Related pages

• Confusion and diffusion
• Product cipher