Perhaps many people are not aware that everything that circulates on the Internet and between our mobile devices is data. Data made up of strings of 1s (ones) and 0s (zeroes), which are sent from one site to another and stored on our computers and many other servers.
And what perhaps not many people are aware of is that this data is generally sent encrypted to try to maintain a certain amount of privacy.
Encryption is something that has existed since ancient times to send messages without anyone "external" being able to get to know their content, and in general some letters were exchanged for others.
The military developed it a lot to be able to transmit messages without the enemy deciphering them. In World War II the case of the German enigma machine was the most famous.
With digital communications and computers, everything has become easier, since the information is made up of 1 and 0, and more 1 and 0 can be added with certain keys to mask the message that is sent. Without encryption today there would be no current communication.
Nuestros mensajes por WhatsApp, ciertos correos, los pagos, los contactos con el banco, etc …. están encriptados para mantener nuestra privacidad, y tanto los hackers como algunos gobiernos disponen de enormes medios tecnológicos para intentar descifrarlos.
The encryption key is the key that allows one data to be transformed into another; and when that information reaches the other end, the same key is used to recover the original message and thus be able to understand it.
Put simply, it sounds easy, but there is a whole world of technology to transmit information securely. Although security is always a bit relative, and we must also be aware of it.
Experts say that although today the encryption we use is quite secure, with the arrival in the future of new quantum computers (they are much more powerful than current ones) the encryption keys used could be easily decrypted by these new computers, and the security we have could be lost.
This is probably true, but I am clear that those same quantum computers will be able to generate other, more sophisticated keys to continue maintaining a certain level of privacy.
It is the eternal fight between the "good" and the "bad". Some try to do things legally and honestly, and others try to take advantage of them and get what they have through more or less illegal procedures.
We are who we are, and that will not change. Only the technologies we use will change.
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