1.3.1 Compression, Encryption and Hashing

Question 1

What is the current need of compression?

Answer 1

Internet service providers and mobile networks set limits and charges on bandwidth so the reduction of file sizes is important to ensure that people can view more with the limited amount of bandwidth.

Question 2

What is Lossy compression?

Answer 2

Lossy compression is an algorithm where in order to reduce the size of a file, non essential data is removed.

Question 3

What is an advantage of file compression?

Answer 3

Files will download quicker and use less of the users bandwidth.

Question 4

What is Lossless compression?

Answer 4

Lossless compression works by recording the patterns in data rather than recording the data itself, using the patterns and the instructions on how to use them, a computer can reproduce the exact data.

Question 5

Whats the difference between Lossy and Lossless compression?

Answer 5

Lossy compression takes away some of the data from the original. Lossless preserves all the information.

Question 6

Why might Lossy compression be inappropriate in the compression of a text file?

Answer 6

Data lost from a text file may render it unreadable.

Question 7

What are two examples of Lossless compression techniques?

Answer 7

RLE (Run Length Encoding) and Dictionary-Based Compression.

Question 8

What is RLE and how does it work?

Answer 8

Run length encoding is a type of lossless compression where rather than recording every item in a sequence, it simply records the value and the number of time it repeats.

Question 9

Why would RLE be inappropriate for this string, QWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNM?

Answer 9

Run Length encoding relies on consecutive pieces of data being the same in order to work best. Therefore RLE would not work great with that string as there are no repeats of data.

Question 10

What is RLE best for? and what is it not suited to?

Answer 10

RLE works best for simple images where there a lots of repeated colors, It does not work as great for natural language due to lack of repeating data.

Question 11

What is Dictionary-Based compression and how does it work? (Including decompression)

Answer 11

In dictionary encoding frequently occurring groups of characters are replaced by symbols/tokens which represent the longer groups of characters. A dictionary is then used to say which symbols/tokens/ match which groups of characters. When decompressed the dictionary is used to replace the tokens/symbols with the original text.

Question 12

What technique would be most suitable to compress the following and why?, “What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,”

Answer 12

Dictionary-Based compression because there a lots of repeated groups of characters, for example “name”, “Romeo”, “SPACE”.

Question 13

Demonstrate how you could compress the following using Dictionary-Based compression. ““Nory was a Catholic because her mother was a Catholic, and Nory’s mother was a Catholic because her father was a Catholic, and her father was a Catholic because his mother was a Catholic, or had been.””

Answer 13

Firstly I counted the frequency of the character groups and SPACE had a frequency of 36, “a” was repeated 6 times and “was” was also repeated 6 times. So to ill assign SPACE to 1, “a” to 2 and “was” to 3. Nory1321Catholic1because1her1mother1321Catholic etc etc.”

Question 14

Why is Lossy compression more suited to photographs than Lossless compression?

Answer 14

When compressing a photograph some loss of detail is acceptable as the image will still be recognisable and the loss of detail is likely not going to be noticeable. Lossy compression also makes the file smaller than Lossless.

Question 15

What is the Vernam cipher?

Answer 15

The Vernam Cipher was invented in 1917 by Gilbert Vernam and is proven to be unbreakable.

Question 16

Define encryption.

Answer 16

Encryption is the transformation of data from one form to another to prevent unauthorised third party viewings.

Question 17

What is plain text?

Answer 17

Plain text is the original data or message before it has been encrypted.

Question 18

What is ciphertext?

Answer 18

Cipher text refers to the encrypted data.

Question 19

Define a cipher.

Answer 19

A cipher is the encryption method or algorithm used to encrypt data.

Question 20

What is an example of a substitution cipher?

Answer 20

A Caeser Cipher.

Question 21

What is private key encryption?

Answer 21

Private key encryption is symmetric encryption where the key is used to both encrypt and decrypt the ciphertext, this means the key must be transferred in key exchange to the same destination as the cipher text.

Question 22

Whats the issue with symmetric encryption?

Answer 22

Since the same key is used to both decrypt and encrypt data, a malicious third party could simply intercept the key and view the data.

Question 23

What is public key encryption?

Answer 23

Asymmetric encryption uses two separate keys to encrypt and decrypt data, the public key is used to encrypt data to allow anyone to send you data encrypted, the other key is a private key that only you have, this can be used to decrypt the data and its practically impossible to deduce the private key from the public key.

Question 24

What is a hash?

Answer 24

A result generated by applying an algorithm

process to a value.

Question 25

How does a digital signature work?

Answer 25

The sender of the message uses their own private key to encrypt the hash total, this is the digital signature, the signature is then attached to the message being sent and the whole message is encrypted using the public key of the recipient including the digital signature. When the recipient decrypts the message using their private key and decrypts the digital signature using the senders public key. The hash total is then reproduced based on the message data and if this matches the digital signature then its certain that the message came from the sender.

Question 26

Whats an advantage of storing sensitive data as a hash?

Answer 26

Hash functions are one way and cannot be reversed so if someone gained access to a data base they would not be able to access the sensitive data.

Question 27

What is an advantage of Lossy compression?

Answer 27

The advantage is that with lossy compression, you can typically achieve a far better compression ratio as compared with lossless.

Question 28

Write a pseudo code representation of how a password might work being stored as a hash.

Answer 28

temp == hash(UserEnteredPassword)
if temp == PasswordHash then
            print ("Access granted")
else
            print("Access denied")
endif

Question 29

Write a pseudocode representation of RLE for an image.

Answer 29

set color to 0
set count to 0
for each pixel in the image
     if current pixel color not equal to color then
     write count
     set color to current pixel color
     set count to 1
     else 
            increment count by 1