What are the best YouTube videos to learn about cryptography basics?

Cryptography is the science of securing information through encryption, transforming readable data (plaintext) into unreadable formats (ciphertext) to prevent unauthorized access.

The term "cryptography" is derived from the Greek words "kryptos," meaning hidden, and "grapho," meaning to write, illustrating the discipline's essence of creating secretive communication methods.

The earliest recorded use of cryptography dates back to ancient Egypt, around 1900 BC, where non-standard hieroglyphs were used to convey secret messages.

Modern cryptography relies heavily on mathematical concepts such as number theory, particularly the properties of prime numbers for creating secure encryption keys, underscoring the importance of mathematics in digital security.

Symmetric-key cryptography involves using the same key for both encryption and decryption.

This method relies on the secrecy of the key - if someone intercepts the key, they can decrypt all messages.

Asymmetric-key cryptography, or public-key cryptography, uses two keys: a public key, which can be shared openly, and a private key, which remains confidential.

This dual-key approach allows secure exchanges without the need for a pre-shared secret.

The RSA algorithm, named after its inventors Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman, relies on the difficulty of factoring large composite numbers, making it a foundational technique in secure data transmission today.

Hash functions play a critical role in cryptography by taking an input (or "message") and producing a fixed-size string of characters, which appears random.

They are essential for ensuring data integrity and authenticity as even a slight change in input yields a vastly different output.

The phenomenon known as "quantum cryptography" explores using principles from quantum mechanics to create encryption methods that could be virtually unbreakable, leveraging the behavior of subatomic particles.

The Kerckhoffs's principle asserts that a cryptographic system should be secure even if everything about the system (except the key) is public knowledge.

This idea promotes the design of cryptography based solely on the secrecy of the key.

Cryptanalysis is the study of analyzing information systems to uncover hidden aspects, primarily focused on breaking cryptographic codes and ciphers, and has been pivotal in historical conflicts.

The widely adopted Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) was established by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology in 2001 and serves as a standard for encrypting sensitive data because of its robustness and efficiency.

The elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) is a smaller, more efficient form of public-key cryptography that provides similar levels of security with shorter keys, making it increasingly popular in mobile and embedded systems.

Post-quantum cryptography is an emerging field focusing on developing cryptographic systems that are secure against the potential threat posed by quantum computers, which could break traditional cryptographic schemes.

Cryptographic systems are widely used beyond secure communication, including digital signatures for identity verification, blockchain technology for securing transactions, and securing sensitive personal data across platforms.

A notable incident in cryptography is the "Crypto Wars" of the 1990s, where government agencies, led mainly by the US government, sought to limit the use of strong encryption to prevent criminal activities, leading to debates over privacy and security rights.

In the realm of cryptography, "zero-knowledge proofs" refer to a method where one party can prove to another that they know a value without revealing the actual value, crucial for enhancing privacy in various applications.

The concept of "secure multiparty computation" allows parties to jointly compute a function over their inputs while keeping those inputs private, which has implications for collaborative processes in finance and secure data sharing.

Digital certificates are utilized in public key infrastructure (PKI) to verify the ownership of public keys in online transactions, providing a way for users to communicate securely over untrusted networks.

The field of cryptography is continuously advancing with the proliferation of new technologies, and as artificial intelligence becomes more integrated into data management, its implications for encryption and data security are becoming increasingly significant.