When it comes to data cryptography, a number of methods are available including hash functions, authentication codes, steganography and block ciphers.

An example of a block cipher mechanism is Twofish, which is a license-free, un-patented, 128-bit block cipher. Published in 1998 Twofish was a finalist in the contest to find a standard for the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) – (Rijndael was selected). A number of block ciphers exist including AES, Blowfish, DES, Triple DES, and Twofish.

In its simplest form a block cipher is a mechanism for encrypting and decrypting information using fixed blocks of data. A block cipher works by using a fixed block of data to use in the encryption process – this block of data is kept secret – this is the ’secret key’.

You can read more about block ciphers at:
http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/node.asp?id=2168

You can learn more about Twofish at:
http://www.schneier.com/twofish.html

You can learn more about AES at:
http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/aesq&a.htm

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