Using Spreadsheets to Teach Data Encryption Techniques

Abstract

There are a variety of reasons why understanding encryption technology is likely to become increasingly important in the future, and therefore why accounting courses are likely to include encryption materials in future curricula. This paper discusses five encryption techniques: transposition ciphers, cyclic substitution ciphers, Vigenere ciphers, exclusive OR ciphers, and permutation ciphers. Accompanying these discussions are explanations of how instructors can demonstrate these techniques with spreadsheet models. The author's experiences with such models in classroom use have been uniformly positive.