Please can someone explain the difference between a cryptographic ‘Key Space’ and ‘Key Length’

Question

I’ve just started a cryptography section of an exam I’m studying for and I just don’t understand these terms. Please can someone explain what they are and how they differ from different algorithms – thanks! 🙂

In: 2

Answer 1

Imagine you have 3 different colloured blocks and have to use all of them to create a pattern. In this case your Key lenght is 3.

Now you have to do order them and find all possible ways to order them.All the possiblle ways, in this case 3^(3) = 27, are the Key Space.