Gadgetory

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 are 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 intruders eat rooters whatever while they zip around on the Internet but aside from the reassuring little eye calling 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 ciphertext 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 are 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 wheeeeel cipher that was nothing more than wooden disks around an axle and then the Germans famously used a typewriter like device called the Enigma machine to encrypt military messages during World War two 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 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 anyway could intercept and read your encrypted emails that would defeat the purpose instead the recipients computer unlocks the message with a private key that is stored on that system alone making it mercifully impossible for anyone else to view 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 use to make sure it can sit on the computer or server safely for example you probably have a password and credit card numbers stored without 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 hacker so next time you're G chatting a friend about how awesome the latest episode of tech wiki 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 doc speaking of whatever I was talking about Master opcom they have all kinds of cool stuff on that their site they got Lake knives they got like keyboards and key caps they got like headphones basically if it's a consumer electronic item that's like hip and cool and people want to buy it mass 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 deal that's available on the site so all you going to do is sign up you can start browsing around and finding cool stuff really audio products are a really big one but they have all kinds of different stuff and often only available for a limited time although sometimes particularly popular deals come back like for example they have the antlion 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 O the more likely it is that I'm going to cut myself with this so mass drop does not in any way condone the unsafe use of knives but they definitely do sell them to even me so is that unsafe I don't know you can find out by clicking on the link of 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 those things if you have suggestions for future facets pop full episodes just like this one and as always don't forget to subscribe to tech wiki for more videos just like this