Advantages and disadvantages of the commercial use of strong cryptographic products - Essay Example

Advantages and Disadvantages of the Commercial Use of Strong Cryptographic Products By Advantages and Disadvantages of the Commercial Use of Strong Cryptographic ProductsAbstract Cryptographic has a very important role in the protection of security of information in the society. However, the use of very strong cryptographic material normally has a negative impact on national security and law enforcement. In this respect, government will tend to control the use, research and export of cryptography.

This paper will look at the main advantages and disadvantages of the commercial use of cryptographic products (Bao and Deng 2005). AdvantagesOne of the advantages of the commercial use of public-key cryptographic products is the convenience it comes with and the increased security. Private keys are not supposed to be revealed or transmitted to any other individual. On the other hand, secret-key systems have to be transmitted through a communication channel or manually since the same key used for decryption is also used for encryption.

In this case, the might be serious threat of an enemy discovering the secret key when it is being transmitted (Guo and Jin 2011). In addition public-key systems can provide signatures digitally thus preventing repudiation. During authentication through secret-key systems, there is the need of sharing secrets and in other cases it requires the involvement of a third party. This third party can go against the other members and repudiate a message that was previously authenticated and claim the shared secret was compromised.

For example, a company may involve a central database that keeps copies in its secret-key system authentication. If this central database is attacked, a widespread forgery on the product of this company would occur. Public-key authentication can prevent this forgery and secure the products of the company. Disadvantages Cryptography has the disadvantage of speed during encryption. Some encryptions methods are faster than others but they take time to encrypt. In order to maximally reduce the time used during encryption, it is advisable to combine several methods to obtain security advantages and speed.

This is done by using public-key systems together with secret-key systems. Public key-systems have the advantage of security while secret key systems have the advantage of speed. This protocol is normally referred to as digital envelope (Mollin 2001). The creation of the code used in the encryption and decryption process takes time. For one to figure out the best code to use they have to be an expert in that field and at the same time is patient. This makes the process of make the process of cryptography a hectic and tiring one.

In the past sending a code from one person to another took a lot of time because of the slow nature of this process.Another very major disadvantage of encryption technology is the lack of well-established international standards that allows operation of commercial cryptography between different countries across the globe. This has led to difficulties in communication between countries since there is no common standard that allows proper encryption. The standards that have been established, like the DEA-1 [ISO 1987] [ISO 1988a] [ISO 1988b] [ISO 1991a] [ISO 1991b] faced very strong opposition by various agencies of security (Moldovyan 2007).

In summary, the use of commercial cryptography has its own advantages but also faces challenges. Proper use of this technology has saved lives in different commercial products and has led to better security levelsReferencesBAO, F. and DENG, R. (2005). Cryptographic solutions for user privacy protection in transactions of digital products. Computer Communications.Guo, R. and Jin, C. (2011). Two Cryptographic Properties of Strong Security Tweakable Enciphering Scheme. Journal of Electronics & Information Technology, 33(7), pp.1761-1764.Moldovyan, N.

and Moldovyan, A. (2007). Innovative cryptography. Boston: Charles River Media.Mollin, R. (2001). An introduction to cryptography. Boca Raton: Chapman & Hall/CRC.