Codebook

In cryptography, a codebook is a document used for implementing a code. A codebook contains a lookup table for coding and decoding; each word or phrase has (one or more) strings which replace it. To decipher messages written in code, identical copies of the codebook must be available at either end. The distribution and physical security of codebooks presents a special difficulty in the use of codes, compared to the secret information used in ciphers, the key, which is typically much shorter.

Related Topics:
Cryptography - Code - Lookup table - Physical security - Cipher - Key

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NSA documents sometimes use "codebook" to mean 'block cipher'; compare their use of "combiner-type algorithm" to mean 'stream cipher'.

Related Topics:
NSA - Block cipher - Stream cipher

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