The document discusses modern symmetric ciphers, dividing them into stream ciphers and block ciphers. Stream ciphers combine plaintext with a pseudorandom keystream and include synchronous and self-synchronizing types, while block ciphers encrypt fixed-length blocks of plaintext using various modes like ECB and CBC. Additionally, it outlines Shannon's characteristics for effective ciphers, emphasizing simplicity, error resilience, and proportionate secrecy.