when we visit a website that features that little padlock in the corner of our
browser we're trusting it to keep our data safe and whether it's our credit
card numbers sensitive work documents or those questionable photos that you told
your friend not to take various types of encryption standards ensure that they
are kept out of the prying hands of e
Intruders Intruders whatever while they
zip around on the internet but aside from the reassuring little icon on your
computer screen what's actually going on what is encryption all right so while
today's video focuses on encryption on the web specifically and the procedures
used for encrypting data can be massively complex the fundamental idea
behind all encryption is really quite simple whenever you transfer encrypted
information your computer turns that data into an unintelligible mess or
Cipher text that can only be put back into a readable form by unlocking it
with a key of some sort that tells the receiving computer how to decode the
incoming message this basic concept has actually been used to send secret
messages since long before the invention of computers ciphers of various kinds
have been used for thousands of years and machines that could encode and
decode messages were in use before The Modern PC ever came along Thomas
Jefferson invented a wheel Cipher that was nothing more than wooden discs
around an axle and then the Germans famously used a typewriter like device
called the Enigma machine to encrypt military messages during World War II
although the Allies were able to crack that code now back to the web era modern
Electronics often use a widespread encryption scheme called public key
encryption suppose you want to send an email when you click Send the receiving
computer will provide your computer with what's called a public key a public key
is generated by the computer just randomly choosing a very large number
and running it through some mathematical functions once your computer receives
this public key it uses the the key to lock the email using a special algorithm
then sends it on its way now since anyone can request a public key from a
computer the public key can't be used to unlock a message otherwise anyone could
intercept and read your encrypted emails that would defeat the purpose instead
the recipient's computer unlocks the message with a private key that is
stored on that system alone making it mercifully impossible for anyone else to
do the terrible poetry you sent to your girlfriend that has her rethinking
things public key encryption isn't just used for email it's actually the basis
of tons of websites that require you to sign in securely if you've ever clicked
on that little padlock and saw a mention of SSL or TLS these are two
implementations of public key encryption that are widely used by Google Facebook
Microsoft and many more to make sure that only you can access your data or
change your settings now once the sensitive data actually arrives at its
destination there are a number of other encryption methods used to make sure it can sit on the computer or server safely
for example you probably have a password and credit card number stored with
Amazon for example how do they keep those things safe often web servers will
hash your passwords meaning that they're converted into encrypted strings of text
through a process that is extremely difficult to reverse and can't be
unlocked with a key now with all that said it is important to remember that no
system of encryption is perfect and experts in the field are constantly
searching for weaknesses in encryption algorithms and devising new ones to
outsmart hackers so next time you're G chatting a friend about how awesome the
latest episode of tech quick you was remember that it was really an epic
digital arms race that allowed you to do that without everyone knowing exactly
how much of your free time you spend listening to me talk speaking of
whatever I was talking about mop.com they have all kinds of cool stuff on
that their site they got like knives they got like keyboards and key apps
they got like headphones basically if
it's a consumer electronic item that's like hip and cool and people want to buy
it m drop works with the manufacturers and Distributors to get the lowest
possible prices depending on how many people want to buy it so the way it
works is the more people commit to buy the more people get an even lower price
on one of the community curated deals that's available on the site so all you
got to do is sign up you can start browsing around and finding cool stuff
uh really audio products are a really big one but they have all kinds of
different stuff and often only available for limited time although sometimes
particularly popular deals come back like for example they have the ant lion
mod mic back right now we've actually done a review of that over on my other
channel Linus Tech tips and I think the longer I keep doing this the more likely
it is that let's go for a double oh the more likely it is that I'm going to cut
myself with this so M drop does not any way condone the unsafe use of knives but
they definitely do sell them to even me
so uh is that unsafe I don't know you can find out by clicking on the link in
the video description thanks for watching guys like this video if you liked it dislike it if you thought it
sucked leave a comment if your feelings are more complicated than either of those things and if you have suggestions
for future fast as popal episodes just like this one and as always don't forget
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