Password Protection!
Learners enhance their understanding of encryption and decryption to protect personal information and develop critical thinking skills by using different encryption tools to create and send coded messages.
What You Need
- Scrap paper
- Writing tool (i.e. pencil, pen, etc.)
- One brass fastener and pair of scissors, per learner, if using the cryptograph wheel
- *Encryption tool template: Password Protection - Encryption Tool Template
- Cryptograph wheel
- International morse code
- Moon units
*Note: Allow learners to select the encryption tools they are most interested in using!
Overview:
Safety Notes
- Ensure you are familiar with Let's Talk Science's precautions with respect to safe delivery of outreach to youth.
- Ensure proper support is provided for cutting with scissors.
What To Do
- Ask learners to write down the name of their favourite colour. This represents their personal information. It’s important for people to protect their personal information, especially when putting it online. This is where encryption comes in. Encryption is a way of disguising information. The more ways to disguise personal information, the better!
- A simple first step to make it harder for someone to figure out what the colour is to write it backwards. This isn’t an actual form of encryption, but it can make it harder for someone to guess it.
- Now it’s up to each learner to decide how many layers of encryption they want to use, which tools they want to use and in which order.
- Invite learners to create additional messages, using the different encryption tools, and partner them up to solve each other’s secret messages!
Discovery
Encryption is a way of hiding a message so that it is kept secret from everyone except the person the message is intended for. Computers use complicated encryption techniques to keep data safe, while simple codes and ciphers can allow people to send secret messages! Each type of encryption that is applied to safeguard personal information makes it harder for someone else to figure it out. Decryption enables the recipient to unscramble/solve the secret message. The decryption process also introduces the possibility of mistakes if the information is not decrypted correctly. This added effort and possibility for error are the main reasons why multiple layers of encryption may not be the best solution for all online information exchanges.
A Cryptograph wheel helps to solve a “Caesar” or “shift” cipher. A shift cipher is one of the simplest encryption techniques for text, and can easily be solved using a cryptograph wheel if the key is known.
In Morse Code, each letter of the alphabet is encoded as a different pattern of dots and dashes. Common letters are represented by short sequences. For example a single dot stands for “E”. Less common letters are represented by long sequences, for example “dash-dash-dot-dash” stands for “Q”. This pattern keeps transmissions as short as possible since shorter sequences will be used a lot and longer sequences only rarely. This makes Morse code a kind of compression code.
Moon units were used as a substitute for brail. Each letter has a unique symbol.
As technology advances, it is more important than ever that people contribute to the digital world. Building computational thinking skills, such as critical thinking, will help learners prepare for the future.
With our world becoming more and more dependent on technology, the amount of information that we put online grows every day. Any of this digital information can be at risk of being hacked, stolen, or even held for ransom. That’s why it’s more important than ever to critically think about the information that we put online and how we can best protect it!
- Encourage learners to test out different codes and even create their own!
- Try deleting all vowels to create shorter messages!
- Break the message into groups of six letters!
- Try breaking words in random places to mix up the word length!
What's Happening?
Encryption is a way of hiding a message so that it is kept secret from everyone except the person the message is intended for. Computers use complicated encryption techniques to keep data safe, while simple codes and ciphers can allow people to send secret messages! Each type of encryption that is applied to safeguard personal information makes it harder for someone else to figure it out. Decryption enables the recipient to unscramble/solve the secret message. The decryption process also introduces the possibility of mistakes if the information is not decrypted correctly. This added effort and possibility for error are the main reasons why multiple layers of encryption may not be the best solution for all online information exchanges.
A Cryptograph wheel helps to solve a “Caesar” or “shift” cipher. A shift cipher is one of the simplest encryption techniques for text, and can easily be solved using a cryptograph wheel if the key is known.
In Morse Code, each letter of the alphabet is encoded as a different pattern of dots and dashes. Common letters are represented by short sequences. For example a single dot stands for “E”. Less common letters are represented by long sequences, for example “dash-dash-dot-dash” stands for “Q”. This pattern keeps transmissions as short as possible since shorter sequences will be used a lot and longer sequences only rarely. This makes Morse code a kind of compression code.
Moon units were used as a substitute for brail. Each letter has a unique symbol.
Why Does It Matter?
As technology advances, it is more important than ever that people contribute to the digital world. Building computational thinking skills, such as critical thinking, will help learners prepare for the future.
With our world becoming more and more dependent on technology, the amount of information that we put online grows every day. Any of this digital information can be at risk of being hacked, stolen, or even held for ransom. That’s why it’s more important than ever to critically think about the information that we put online and how we can best protect it!
Investigate Further
- Encourage learners to test out different codes and even create their own!
- Try deleting all vowels to create shorter messages!
- Break the message into groups of six letters!
- Try breaking words in random places to mix up the word length!