End-to-End encryption
What is encryption?
- Encryption generally refers to the act of changing some consumable information into an inconsumable form based on some rules.
What is E2E encryption?
- E2E is encryption which refers to particular locations between which information moves.
- In this setup, two important forms of encryption are involved which are encryption-in-transit and E2E encryption.
- encryption-in-transit means before a message is relayed from the server to the person (or vice versa), it is encrypted.
- This scheme is used to prevent an actor from being able to read the contents of the message by intercepting the relay signal.
- In E2E encryption, the message is encrypted both in transit and also at rest that is when being relayed from one’s phone to the server (or vice versa) and when it is sitting inside the server.
- It is only decrypted when receiver receives the message.
- Endtoend (E2E) encryption in particular protects information in a way that has transformed human rights organisations’, lawenforcement agencies’, and tech companies’ outlook on their ability to access information about individuals to protect, prosecute or profit from their engagement.
How is information encrypted?
- There are several ways to encrypt information depending on the level of secrecy and protection required for the same.
- If some information is to remain encrypted for 100 years, a computer must require more than 100 years to decrypt the information without the key.
- One broad distinction involved is between symmetric and asymmetric encryption.
- In symmetric encryption, the key used to encrypt some information is also the same key required to decrypt it.
- DES (Data Encryption Standard) is a famous example of a symmetric encryption protocol.
- Asymmetric encryption shall work as long as the private key and the correspondence between the public key and the private key are kept secret.
