What
is encryption technology?
Encryption
is the transformation of text or data into a coded form that is
close to impossible to read without the key to decode the message.
This scrambling of the message is done by using a mathematical formula
making the message appear to be nonsense.
What are common uses for encryption?
Besides e-commerce applications (such as transmission of credit
card numbers, account numbers, and other sensitive information), encryption is also used by the military to guard secrets and pay-per-view
television channels to only grant access to paying customers.
How does encryption work?
In the most basic terms, the sender encodes the message using a
mathematical formula, which scrambles the message, then sends it.
The recipient of the message must then decode the message before
it can be read using a special key.
How
secure is encryption?
The
level of security of encryption is measured in terms of key length.
The longer the key, the longer it would take someone without the
correct "decoder" to unscramble the code. This key length
is measured in bits (e.g., 40-bit encryption, the level of encryption
used with many ordinary browsers, as opposed to 128-bit encryption,
the level of encryption required by eBusiness IDs). For a 40-bit
key there exists 240 possible different key combinations. Similarly,
for a 128-bit key there are 2128
possible different key combinations. According to Netscape, 128-bit
encryption is 309,485,009,821,345,068,724,781,056 times more powerful than 40-bit encryption.
Please note that we use 256-bit encryption! |