Block cipher

From CryptoDox, The Online Encyclopedia on Cryptography and Information Security

A block cipher is a type of symmetric-key encryption algorithm that transforms a fixed-length block of unencrypted text data (plaintext) into a block of encrypted text data (ciphertext) of the same length. This transformation takes place under the action of a user-provided secret key. Decryption is performed by applying the reverse transformation to the ciphertext block using the same secret key.

See Also

• Stream cipher
• Private-key Cryptography

External Links

• What is a block cipher