The document discusses stream ciphers and block ciphers. A stream cipher encrypts plaintext digits one at a time using a keystream, while a block cipher treats a block of plaintext as a whole and produces an encrypted ciphertext block of the same length. It then discusses the Feistel cipher, which executes simple ciphers in sequence to produce stronger encryption. In a Feistel cipher, the plaintext is split into halves, one half is encrypted using a subkey, and the results are XOR'd and the halves swapped in each round except the last.