Encryption: The Key to Online Safety
Encryption is the process of encoding information so that it can only be accessed by the intended parties, and if it is intercepted, it should not be comprehensible to the third party.
The most basic form of encryption is something you might have used to pass notes in high school: ROT-13
ROT13 is a simple letter-substitution cypher--each letter is replaced with the 13th letter after it (or rotated 13 places).
Jr ubyq gurfr gehguf gb or frys-rivqrag, gung nyy zra ner perngrq rdhny, gung gurl ner raqbjrq ol gurve Perngbe jvgu pregnva hanyvranoyr Evtugf, gung nzbat gurfr ner Yvsr, Yvoregl naq gur chefhvg bs Unccvarff.
ROT 13 would keep someone reading over your shoulder from knowing what you are writing, but is obviously not something that would keep a message secret for long.
The history of encryption is fascinating, and something that I highly recommend reading about, However, we used to have little to use for it in our day-to-day life. The advent of the internet changed things drastically--anything shared over the internet that needs to be kept private must be encrypted, and that encryption must be strong enough that a jerk with a good computer can't easily grab our credit card numbers or health information.
So as an end-user, what do you need to know about encryption?
First and foremost, you need to know if you are using it.
If you are using a laptop or mobile device that connects to the internet through Wireless, you need to make sure that network is secure.
In general, when you look at your wireless connection, your device will show an icon with a lock, the word "Secure" or both. If the connection you are using does not have a lock or the word secure, then you are using an insecure connection, and someone could snoop on the data you transmit.
This is what you want if you're sending emails or using a cloud service or something else using the internet that does not use a web browser.
The second place to check for encryption is your web browser.
Web browsers have a protocol called secure hypertext transfer protocol (https) that encrypts the information you are sending through the web browser. Check in the Location bar of your web browser for a lock, or for the word Secure. This means that the connection between you and the site you are using is encrypted.
To clarify, this doesn't mean all your information is safe--it just means the transmission between your web browser and the website is encrypted.
But that is a good first step.
NOTE: The title here is an intentional pun, since key is common terminology for talking about decryption.