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Cryptol is a domain specific programming language for
cryptographyCryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties...
developed by the
Portland, OregonPortland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
based
software developmentSoftware development is the development of a software product...
firm, Galois, Inc.. The language was originally developed for use by the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
National Security AgencyThe National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S...
. The language is also used by private firms that provide
information technologyInformation technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
systems, such as the American company
Rockwell CollinsRockwell Collins, Inc. is a large United States-based international company headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, primarily providing aviation and information technology systems and services to governmental agencies and aircraft manufacturers.- History :...
provides to
aerospaceAn aerospace manufacturer is a company or individual involved in the various aspects of designing, building, testing, selling, and maintaining aircraft, aircraft parts, missiles, rockets, and/or spacecraft....
and
defense contractorA defense contractor is a business organization or individual that provides products or services to a military department of a government. Products typically include military aircraft, ships, vehicles, weaponry, and electronic systems...
s in the United States.
The programming language is used for all aspects of developing and using cryptography, such as the design and implementation of new
cipherIn cryptography, a cipher is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption — a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is encipherment. In non-technical usage, a “cipher” is the same thing as a “code”; however, the concepts...
s and the verification of existing cryptographic algorithms. Cryptol is designed to allow the cryptographer to watch how stream processing functions in the program manipulate the ciphers or
encryptionIn cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key. The result of the process is encrypted information...
algorithms. This aspect of Cryptol has been of particular interest to computer programmers who write new programming languages and to the field of
artificial intelligenceArtificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
.
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