Encryption: its role in the modern world

Encryption is everywhere nowadays; sometimes we have no idea that we are using it by making simple transactions like getting cash from ATM or buying something with the credit card online. The only one reason that your personal data hasn’t been breached yet is that all these systems of online payment and ordering are using encryption software.

The cryptography, a study of encryption explains everything in simple words. It’s all about making nonsense out of a readable text, number sequences or even sound. When you look at the encrypted file you see nothing but numbers, letters, signs performed absolutely randomly. However, there is logic. There is gpg and pgp encryption software. Pgp means pretty good privacy and was developed in the 1970s by the believers in the privacy of information. Gpg is an implementation of pgp code and is widespread nowadays as well.

There is a lot of free encryption software helping you to code and decode information. Some of it is easy to handle some is very complicated. It doesn’t mean that it performs a different level of protection, all encryption software uses the similar open source code, and it’s eventually just a matter of usability friendliness and your preferences. Anyway, whatever the GUI is the primary goal of it to scramble your initial data and don’t leave any hints on what it used to be before the encryption process.

Nowadays encryption is widely used when you want to communicate with some people or organize a protected channel of communications on your enterprise and don’t let any third party get access to your sensitive information. Such needs gave rise to public cryptography and brought to life many best encryption software that is at the same time classified as business ones.

1. How encryption works

In a nutshell, it allows you to send encrypted messages to someone or the company, via email or through instant messaging apps and you know that if some conditions are provided the receiver would easily decrypt it. That’s why encryption process uses binary keys: one is public, and the other is private. Everyone can get access to your public key, the one you are performing the encryption process with but only those who get hold of the other key; the private one could open and read it.

These keys are generated and in some way resemble the encrypted messages themselves. These are usually large numbers or a session of letters, numbers and other signs. From the mathematical point of view, it’s easier to multiply big numbers together so maybe because of that sometimes the length of a key is the same as the encrypted message. The fundamental principle of encryption is that because of its complexity and huge numbers generated it is impossible for a hacker to search through any available resources to find the two matching keys.

2. Kinds of encryption software

Some email providers could use email encryption software to exchange messages but this kind of ‘special’ function to provide you and your communications with top secret privacy is being questioned nowadays. This software works the same way WhatsApp and Instagram instant messaging tools do, they encrypt users’ chats. And some categories of people could take the good will of encryption creators for granted and mistreat the privacy option. It could be used by drug dealers, terrorists, etc. to make their chats secret for the rest.

The encryption software for Windows is very well-presented in the modern world, and the same programs typically act as the encryption software for Mac. Kleopatra occupies the top list. It’s a complicated system with the abundance of certificates and programs-affiliates, but it’s known all over the world and is being used by millions of users.

3. Key factors to choose the best encryption software

• The target of encryption: messages, USB some sticks or hard drives.
• Is it open source or not. The majority of encryption software is a free and open source but if you are very sensitive about the privacy of your data you can pick some software to pay for. Anyway, free encryption software is a standard.
• The speed of encryption. Before making up your mind, try different kinds of encryption tools and see how it works.
• Security level. Always check whether the software operates on gpg or pgp, not on their modified versions.

4. Possible vulnerabilities of encryption software

Hackers could try to attack the process of communication even if it is encrypted. Sometimes the mathematic algorithm of gpg or pgp could be misapplied. It means that nothing is wrong with the way of encryption; its implementation causes the flaws.

Sometimes you may hear that some companies are subverting the process of encryption algorithms creation just to make them easier to be cracked. But again there is no proven data to this belief.

Another problem is connected with the officials of many countries discouraging companies, sometimes even trying to force them to surrender the private keys generated to encrypt business communication. The only reason for this kind of plea is to eavesdrop on the company’s activity.

That’s why some companies are using end-to-end encryption. This technique was developed to move the existing level of encryption security even higher. The method differs from the standard procedure. Our devices could still be vulnerable because the encryption process is separated from the programs we use to create and exchange messages or other data. If hackers manage to slip into the middle between the message making software and the encryption software, then they could see the data before being scrambled. End-to-end encryption doesn’t let this gap originate in the first place because message making software encrypts the messages itself.