Cryptography / Classic ciphers
Lesson 3 of 25
Brute force
Brute force means trying every possible key. It's why key length matters: 25 Caesar keys take a second, but 2^128 AES keys would take longer than the age of the universe.
Key points
- Small key space = easy to brute force
- Each extra bit doubles the work
- Modern keys are 128-256 bits
Quiz · +10 XP
Why is the Caesar cipher easy to break?
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