Reading Reddit, I stumpled upon this article explaining AES using stick figures. I found it so interesting and nicely drawn, that I think you should have a look at it as well. Of course, it is not cover all the "dirty" details but it makes some relevant observation points.

So here it is: http://www.moserware.com/2009/09/stick-figure-guide-to-advanced.html

The other day I stumpled upon a wikipedia site describing the art of Steganography. And as it says: "Steganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no-one apart from the sender and intended recipient even realizes there is a hidden message. By contrast, cryptography obscures the meaning of a message, but it does not conceal the fact that there is a message. Today, the term steganography includes the concealment of digital information within computer files.

So what is all this about then? Well, when you're a little paranoid about your precious data on your computer you must, eventually, be asking yourself: How can I secure my system? There are hundreds of ways to approach this problem but I found that in encrypting the entire hard drive the computer would be totally useless for the assailent. It cannot even boot a system at this point. The only way to do this is by inserting an usbpen, with a kernel and a key-file.