Encryption

From Wolfekipedia

Encryption describes the act of garbling a message to the extent that it is meant to be unreadable to anyone not equipped to decrypt it. Encryption and coding have been used for centuries to protect secrets, and to allow their delivery with relative security.

• From the ancient Babylonian intaglio designs used as a trademark on goods, to modern computer generated encryption, people have endeavored to use various technologies for the protection of goods and information. Much like the ancient Babylonians used intricate markings as trademarks, and wax seals on letters in later years, today digital signatures are used to verify the sender of a message.

• The most recognizable form of encryption consists of the rearrangement and substitution of characters originating from a plaintext message. This is done with an encryption key, and the message can be decoded by the recipient using a decrypt key.

• There are several schemes in use today, including but not limited to:
  • Public Key
    • The encryption key is made public, and is used by senders to encrypt messages to the distributor of the key. The recipient then uses a private key to decrypt the message. The keys are related mathematically, but the public key cannot be used to decrypt the message.

• • Secret Key
    • One key exists for the encryption and decryption of the plaintext, which may simplify the operation, but introduces the problem of delivering the key itself while avoiding interception. A relatively secure form of this involves a set of keys, distributed and meant to be used and discarded in a predetermined order.

Links,

• PGP
• GnuPrivacyGuard or GPG