Since the Internet has become an important tool to gain access to an endless source of information, safety of computers and data has been very important as well.
Encryption is a process that is vital for a stable and secure environment for the computers and the Internet. The basis for encryption is derived from the age old process called cryptography, secret writing, which in fact must be decoded. Because cryptography is based on human input, computers are required to transcript the data and deliver safely to desired person.
What is encryption?
First, encryption is a method by which all forms of messaging, like e-mail, e-commerce, banking, or other personal data is encrypted, so they are unreadable to any other persons who does not have right to open it. This form of security is necessary to protect the privacy of almost all personal and private information held by one computer to another. Information, such as data or messages that are normally sent is known as plain text until that information is encrypted and then labeled as cipher text.
Here is a list of the various methods of encryption is used on the Internet today:
Banks and other financial institutions
Credit Card Companies
Private correspondence (e-mail)
Information for applications, for example, social Security numbers, individual personal profile information and other personal profile information.
Company Profiles and private information
Computers can use either of the two encryption schemes, public key or symmetric key, to convert plain text to cipher text to lock or unlock the data.
Public Key Encryption
Public key encryption, two keys are used with a user, a public key and a private key. The public key is given by a computer to another computer to which it communicates with. Then, to decode a message, a private key assigned to a specific individual user is used together with the public key.
PGP is a public key encryption scheme, it is more widespread because by this way, the user can encrypt almost any amount of information.
Symmetric Encryption Key
This way, only one key is used, which is secret between your computer and the other one you are communicating.
Symmetric keys can be a faster method, but the two computers must have to change their information securely, where public key encryption do not have this problem.
The conversion of the plain text to cipher text is done using encryption algorithm, which is mathematical instructions used to convert.
The difference between the two encryption schemes is the length of the algorithm keys. The public key uses a larger amount of bits than the symmetric key.
Most computer systems are using both public key and symmetric key encryption today.
Encryption is the most reliable process for the much needed security people can rely on today at most of their important and personal transactions, allowing them to security and trust.