There is no denying that technology plays a vital role in our lives. Day in and day out, we turn to gadgets for information, safekeeping and maintaining our social networks. It’s quite impossible to live without it. But there are always two sides to a coin. With all the advantages provided, there are also the disadvantages. There’s an increasing need for privacy and data security. With our growing reliance on technology, almost all our information is now available in the web and there’s a need to protect them. That’s where cryptography enters the picture – in the form of encryption.
Encryption allows our messages to be encoded and decoded in a manner that only the intended parties get to view them. It doesn’t necessarily prevent people from getting their hands on the messages. Rather, they can but the catch is they wouldn’t know what the real message is all about. That’s the beauty of data encryption. The sender would type the message in plaintext which is encrypted into a ciphertext through a certain algorithm. The receiver would then be able to read the message by deciphering it through a key provided. This key is only available to the intended recipient so all others who managed to hold onto the message will be unable to understand what the real message is.
Today, there are different algorithms available that protects communications and transactions in the web. Transport Layer Security and Secure Sockets Layer are two of the most commonly used algorithm protocols used for data security in the web. Other symmetric algorithms include Twofish, Blowfish, Serpent, Advanced Encryption Standard, Triple DES, International Data Encryption Algorithm and CAST-128.
These algorithms are beneficial in protecting data stored in computers and flash drives. They ensure that data being transmitted through the internet, phones, Bluetooth and other networks are protected.
The Wonderful World of Algorithms 