Confusion and diffusion

Okay kiddo, today we're going to learn about confusion and diffusion!

Imagine that you have a secret message that you want to send to your friend, but you don't want anyone else to know what it says. You can use something called encryption to make your message secret.

Confusion means making the message look scrambled and hard to read. It's like when you mix up the letters in a word, so it's not clear what the word says. For example, you can change every letter in your message to a different letter or number, or use some kind of code to make it look like a bunch of gibberish.

But just making the message hard to read isn't enough to keep it secret. If someone knows what kind of encryption you used, they can still figure out what it says if they have enough time and patience.

That's where diffusion comes in. Diffusion means spreading the message out and making it harder to trace back to its original form. It's like when you sprinkle a trail of breadcrumbs along a path, so no one can follow your footsteps and find out where you went.

One way to create diffusion is to scramble up the message, not just by changing the letters, but also by changing the order of the words or adding extra symbols or characters. Another way is to divide the message into parts and send them separately, so it's harder to put them all together again.

Put together, confusion and diffusion help to keep secret messages safe from prying eyes. But remember, it's always important to be careful about who you share your secrets with, even if they seem like your closest friends!