This document discusses cryptography concepts including encryption, decryption, symmetric and asymmetric encryption algorithms, cryptographic hashes, and protocols. It defines cryptography as securing and controlling access to actual data. It explains how encryption works using a cipher text, plain text and encryption/decryption functions. Symmetric encryption uses the same key for encryption and decryption while asymmetric encryption uses a public key to encrypt and private key to decrypt. Common symmetric algorithms include AES and common asymmetric algorithms include RSA and Diffie-Hellman. Cryptographic hashes like SHA-1 produce a fixed-length digest from a message. Protocols specify the full set of steps for cryptographic activities while algorithms are the data transformations. Digital signatures encrypt data with a private key that can