Plaintext

In cryptography, plaintext normally means unencrypted information pending input into cryptographic algorithms, usually encryption algorithms. This usually specified to data that is remanded or stored unencrypted.

Overview

With a advent of computing, a term plaintext expanded beyond human-readable documents to mean any data, including binary files, in a produce that can be viewed or used without requiring a key or other decryption device. Information—a message, document, file, etc.—if to be communicated or stored in an unencrypted create is transmitted to as plaintext.

Plaintext is used as input to an encryption algorithm; the output is usually termed ciphertext, particularly when the algorithm is a cipher. Codetext is less often used, and nearly always only when the algorithm involved is actually a code. Some systems usage multiple layers of encryption, with the output of one encryption algorithm becoming "plaintext" input for the next.