In my last post, I mentioned that I will be elaborating more on what benefits cryptography provides us. The main benefit cryptography provides us is privacy. They’re two main areas that cryptography is applied to provide us this benefit.
The first area is simply paper communication. By setting up a specific algorithm that the communicators know, cryptography will enable secret communication. It would be incredibly difficult for a person who doesn’t know the algorithm to understand the communication that is going on between them. Yes, there is a possibility that one might figure out the algorithm. However, using cryptography ensures much more privacy than not using it.
The second area is computer privacy, specifically the internet.Before the internet, the demand for a strong encryption wasn’t exactly necessary. However, now that internet is used to do literally everything, people are worried about their privacy on the internet. After all, it isn’t very difficult to spot a news report regarding private information leaking on the internet.
Moreover, privacy on web has become extremely important for governments and organizations. It is enormously important for organizations and governments to keep their confidence files away from the public. Leaking these files can lead to catastrophic consequences. A strong algorithm/ coding is required in order to keep these information confident when there are hackers who attempt to leak confidence files for the sake of “Freedom of Information Act”. “Anonymous” is one of the most well known hacker groups. To prevent these groups leaking major information, governments and organizations strive to find the most powerful algorithm that can be used.
1. (Jan 24 2012). Understanding the benefits and pitfalls of modern cryptography. Newelectronics. Retrieved from http://www.newelectronics.co.uk/electronics-technology/understanding-the-benefits-and-pitfalls-of-modern-cryptography/39701/
The Wonderful World of Algorithms 