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Encryption uses different methods of making the message unreadable these methods are called "hash tags"... |
Why would anyone besides a spy or sekret gov agency want to
encrypt or cypher their data?
Well the blame can be put squarely on the internet.
Back before the internet the only time you heard of encryption was in comic books, about spies, or from a cereal box that had a "Sekret Decoder Ring".
When the internet was in it's infancy there were really only two networks:
The network that eventually grew in to the internet that connected different learning institutes together - colleges, universities, and libraries.
Then there was the USA DOD network. (The Department Of Defense).
Where as the infant internet was wide open and anyone that was a student, instructor, worked on a campus, or knew someone could conceivably access another computer somewhere else in the world to find information about a topic if that topic had been input to a local computer's storage. (It wasn't quite as simple as it is to day but if you knew someone or could contact someone at another site you could get your information).
But the DOD network is was a closed network, that is you had to have a security clearance and a
need to access a computer that accessed the DOD network. To go along with that the DOD has encryption programs that were introduced with the network it is called a MIL- Spec then followed by some more numbers and characters. Each program under the MIL-Spec has a degree of
the method from 256 bits to over
1024K bits (and higher!).
Troubleshoot, repair, maintain, upgrade & secure...
With this! |
If you are looking at a program for encrypting your data you want to insure it has the strength to withstand an attack on the
method algorithm. That is to say it would take a series of very high powered computers over 200 years to come up with the
method algorithm or key to decode your data. The DOD MIL-Spec has this power to resist the cracking of the code that the data is encrypted with for a very long time, all are tested on a CRAY Super Computer before being certified.
How you would use encryption:
After installing your program of choice the first step is to create your keys, there are three keys you need to make.
- Public key
- Private key
- Signature key
What the keys are used for:
- The public key you give to others whom you want to share documents with that are sensitive in nature, that is you don't want someone to steal your bank account number or some thing that would cause you harm if it was intercepted or stolen by some unscrupulous person (a thief!).
- The private key you keep in a safe place and only use it when you encrypt your documents, you would also need this key to decrypt the same document or any document received from someone with your public key.
- The signature key is part of your public key that you would attach to email or other documents to signify that the person sending the document was in fact you. (The thieves have figured out that they can copy and paste a sig key so the significance of this deterrent is diminished some what, at one time spammers were using sig keys to verify their email was genuine).
Want to learn how it works? This is a very good tool to use to learn the ins
and outs of encrypting called "PGP" or "Pretty Good Privacy", do a search for
either term.
P.S.
If you use this method to protect your data you may want to look at your
hiring practices (if you are an employer) the current method of investigating
(the pc term is 'vetting') personnel is failing as in the last three cases of
hacking and the thief of highly sensitive data from the State Department of the
USA. More scrutiny of personnel is required or using this method to protect data
is a waste of time and of course money!
Yes, there is more to the
encryption story...
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