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Cryptography vs Algorithm - What's the difference?

cryptography | algorithm |

As nouns the difference between cryptography and algorithm

is that cryptography is the discipline concerned with communication security (eg, confidentiality of messages, integrity of messages, sender authentication, non-repudiation of messages, and many other related issues), regardless of the used medium such as pencil and paper or computers while algorithm is a precise step-by-step plan for a computational procedure that possibly begins with an input value and yields an output value in a finite number of steps.

cryptography

Noun

(en-noun)
  • The discipline concerned with communication security (eg, confidentiality of messages, integrity of messages, sender authentication, non-repudiation of messages, and many other related issues), regardless of the used medium such as pencil and paper or computers.
  • * 1658: , (first use in English),
  • We might abate...the strange cryptography of Gaffarell in his Starrie Booke of Heaven.

    Usage notes

    * Subfields include encoding]], [[decode, decoding, cryptanalysis, codes, ciphers, etc. * In many languages, though less so in English, cognates to "cryptology" are also used with the meaning given above, and even preferred. * Related to cryptography but distinct, steganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no-one apart from the sender and intended recipient even realizes there is a hidden message.

    Derived terms

    * anticryptography * asymmetric cryptography * public-key cryptography

    See also

    *

    algorithm

    Alternative forms

    * algorism (obsolete)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A precise step-by-step plan for a computational procedure that possibly begins with an input value and yields an output value in a finite number of steps.
  • * 1990 , Cormen, Leiserson, and Rivest, Introduction to Algorithms'': page 1. Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press, 1999 (''23rd printing )
  • Informally, an algorithm''''' is any well-defined computational procedure that takes some value, or set of values, as input and produces some value, or set of values, as output. An ' algorithm is thus a sequence of computational steps that transform the input into the output.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-26, author=(Leo Hickman)
  • , volume=189, issue=7, page=26, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= How algorithms rule the world , passage=The use of algorithms in policing is one example of their increasing influence on our lives. And, as their ubiquity spreads, so too does the debate around whether we should allow ourselves to become so reliant on them – and who, if anyone, is policing their use.}}
  • (archaic) Calculation with Arabic numerals; algorism.
  • Hyponyms

    (hyp-top) * approximation algorithm * checksum algorithm * classification algorithm * compression algorithm * computer arithmetic algorithm * distributed algorithm * divide and conquer algorithm (hyp-mid) * genetic algorithm * greedy algorithm * parallel algorithm * randomized algorithm * randomized algorithm * semi-algorithm * sequential algorithm (hyp-bottom)

    Usage notes

    * Though some technical definitions require that an algorithm always terminate in a finite number of steps, this distinction is not generally observed in practice.

    See also

    * data structure * function * program