[Amy Hastings]

A Symmetric Cipher is simply a private way to share information among your friends or another person like a key or code. It’s like if you and one other person were to want to speak to one another privately without anyone else knowing what you’re writing. This is kind of like when you were in school and came up with a “made-up” language by using other things than letters to create a message. This helps you and whoever you’re writing to keep your letter confidential.
A common Symmetric Cipher is DES or Data Encryption Standard. This is used to also use a secret key or code to send messages to another person. This key or code can only be used by you unless you let someone else have access or tell them what your code is. The only one that would be able to know what you wrote would be the one who has that key. So simply a Symmetric Cipher is a way to send messages confidentially with a secret made up code or language made by you.