The recent results of using a new type of chosen-plaintext attack, which is called differential cryptanalysis, makes most published conventional secret-key block cipher systems vulnerable. The need for a new conventional cipher which resists all known attacks was the main inspiration of this work. The design of a secret-key block cipher algorithm called DCU-Cipher, that resists all known cryptanalysis methods is proposed in this dissertation. The proposed method is workable for either 64-bit plaintext/64-bit ciphertext blocks, or 128-bit plaintext/128-bit ciphertext blocks. The secret key in both styles is 128-bit long. This method has only four rounds and the main transformation function in this cipher algorithm is based on four mixed operations. The proposed method is suitable for both hardware and software implementation. It is also suitable for cryptographic hash function implementations. Two techniques for file and/or data communication encryption are also proposed here. These modes are modified versions of the Cipher-Block Chaining mode, by which the threat of the known-plaintext differential cyptanalytical attack is averted. An intensive investigation of the best known Identity-based key exchange schemes is also presented. The idea behind using such protocols, is providing an authenticated secret-key by using the users identification tockens. These kind of protocols appeared recently and are not standardized as yet. None of these protocols have been compared with previous proposals. Therefore one can not realize the efficiency and the advantages of a new proposed protocol without comparing it with other existing schemes of the same type. The aim of this investigation is to clarify the advantages and the disadvantages of each of the best known schemes and compare these schemes from the complixity and the speed viewpoint.