QTTR
Information Technology & Coding Blog
Coder News From TheCrazyProgrammerWhat is cryptography?
Usually cryptography is the technique to transform readable data to unreadable data. We deal with it every single day of our life. Many important regions of science use cryptography, but everyone of us has been using it for years, yet didn’t realize what he/she was doing. You can write and research infinitely when it involves cryptography, therefor that is just a little peak in the places where it’s employed. Now let us see where cryptography can be used!
Think of the average folks. All of us have secrets, we have plenty of them, and some of them are so precious that we would rather die then tell something about it. Is not it? Another very simple example originates from family lives. A family can be viewed just like a small community consisting of 2-10 members, differing from country to country and based on what you call “family”. You go somewhere with your loved ones. You must ask your dad when you are going to your own cabana which stands in an exceedingly delightful place, and you also do not want others to find out you are going there. You just request your old man: “When do we go there?” And that is it. You merely used cryptography! Or Crypto Currency? Why? Only because others who heard what you’ve just said do not know what you’re talking about.
This technique is really significant, that we could not do lots of things without it. Why thus? Well I would like to explain for you. I’ll now require a number of the most important regions of cryptography use.
E-mails
We live in a modern world. We must deliver e-mails, either for company, to friends, businesses, famous people whose address we’ve. It doesn’t matter. We send e-mails all the time. Individuals deliver around 210 billion e-mails daily !
When you deliver an email, it has to get trough the net – a giant network comprising a lot of computers most of which are unprotected and attackable. Lots of people like to steal information from others, occasionally only for fun, but danger comes when it is about something different. Just believe a minute of how large the Internet is. The first three states in the highest number of web users list are:
1.China (253.000.000 users)
2.USA (220.141.969 users)
3.Japan (94.000.000 users)
That’s a lot! There are around 6,720 billion people on earth. And only the first three countries have 0,567 billion Internet users. That’s around 8,43%. Now imagine what is out there.
How can e-mails get protected while they’re being sent? All connections between routers and routers themselves need to be ensured. That’s done by utilizing data encryption. Generally there would be two approaches for this particular security.
The first one would be to use PGP (Pretty Good Privacy). This is both the name of a computer program and also the protocol itself. But what is pgp protocol in fact? This is a method to secure emails, a standard in cryptographically protected e-mails. Essentially it’s combined with MIME Security. Before encrypting with pgp, message body and headers ought to be in MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) canonical format. “multipart/encrypted” denotes encrypted pgp info and must include the next parameter:
protocol=”application/pgp-encrypted”
The multipart/encrypted consists of two parts. The initial part is a MIME body with “application/pgp-encrypted” content type and contains the control information. In addition, the message body must contain the following line:
Version: 1
Complete information for decrypting is contained by the pgp packed format. The second component can be a MIME body, using a more straightforward construction. It comprises the encrypted data itself and it truly is tagged with an “application/octet–stream” content type.
The second procedure is a catchy one. Sender possesses a secure website, receiver has a username and password, and recipient may see the message after logging into the web site.
However ISPs can encrypt communication between servers using TLS (Transport Layer Security) and SASL (Simple Authentication and Security Layer). E-mail servers utilize this sort of protection between each other for example, these servers need their communicating protected so no accidental server can get a replica of any e-mail going through these e-mail servers.
TLS is, in addition, used in many various organizations. TLS can be used with POP3, IMAP, and ACAP. If HTTP is protected by TLS, it provides more security then simple HTTP. A lot of existing customer and server products support TLS, but a lot of them provide no support. Let us check on more information about TLS/SSL.
TLS (Transport Layer Security) and SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) are nearly the same like actually TLS is the successor of SSL; there are only minor differences between them., They’re used for: instant messages, e-mails, browsing, internet faxing. Well, two of the above mentioned are used by everyone. Emails and browsing the Internet: things you do almost everyday. TLS plays a crucial job on the net, especially in communications privacy and endpoint authentication. HTTP, FTP, SMTP, NNTP, XMPP are all protocols with TLS protection. TLS can add security to any protocol which uses a trusted connection (like TCP – Transmission Control Protocol). TLS is most commonly used with HTTP to create HTTPS. In addition , we have to mention that TLS is growing in SMTP lately. In the event of VPN, TLS is used to tunnel an entire network stack. VPN will be discussed in its details afterwards. Let’s just consider HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) and FTP (File Transfer Protocol).
There are approximately 63 billion sites all around the globe, and approximately 1 trillion unique URLs!
Nearly all of these have lots of visitors daily. Picture how important servers are, how significant their security is. What would happen if an average hacker could break into any server? Catastrophe! He’d then break another and another and another… Info could be stolen every single minute; Internet would not have any safe zone. You’ll be afraid to send e-mails, to post anything to a website/forum. It’s difficult to comprehend what would happen without security, the majority of which is completed by cryptography.
Plenty of us also use FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to transfer data between two computers. It works as if you’d open Windows Explorer to see files and folders. The sole difference is the fact that on an FTP connection you can also download files, not simply view or browse them. There are plenty of FTP servers and clients available online. These programs can facilitate your work, you’ll be able to arrange your downloads if you apply the client side, or you are able to organize what others can download in the event you are using the server side. Seems to be a simple solution to transfer files from your own pals, from your nearest and dearest, for your family members, is not it? FTP even lets you to use usernames and passwords for your protection. Each of the above mentioned is clear and fine said, but even this manner FTP is exposed! How so? Affecting its architecture, FTP is built in a way which supplies skill for users on the exact same network as the transport has been processed to sniff information including: files, usernames, and passwords. There’s no built in security or data encryption. A well-known remedy with this security problem would be to use either SFTP or FTPS. Be attentive! It’s perplexing. SFTP and FTPS are two quite differently functioning file transfer protocols, they are not the same. SFPT is SSH (Secure Shell) File Transfer Protocol. SSH also uses public-key cryptography, which works like this: you’ve a text to encrypt, and you’ve got a public key and a private key. Text gets encrypted using the public key, but only who knows the private key can decrypt it. With its architecture – the use of public-key cryptography – SSH is essentially used to log into a machine and execute commands, but also can transfer files (trough SFTP or SCP), and in addition supports tunneling and port forwarding. FTPS is usually called FTP/SSL. FTPS uses SSL/TLS below conventional FTP to encrypt the control and/or information channels.
VPN (Virtual Private Network) is like a virtual computer network. Why so? Think about the Net. How can it work? It contains plenty of computers and servers linked to each other. And how do connections exist and work? They exist physically, they can be linked with wires. Basically the user comes with an ISP (Internet Service Provider) trough which it obtains access to the World Wide Web. Now, what is the difference between Internet network linking and Virtual Private Network linking? VPN uses virtual circuits or open connections to have the network together.
All fine, but VPN needs security to be efficient and used. Well, it has a special security system. I’ll reflect on VPN security issues. Authentication is needed before VPN connection. If you are a known and trusted user, you could have access to resources inaccessible to other users. More interesting is that servers might also have to authenticate themselves to join the Virtual Private Network. Unexpected mechanism, users are familiar with being required to authenticate themselves on a web site or server…but a server also needs authentication? Yes, it does! There are many different authentication mechanisms used in VPNs. Some of these mechanisms are comprised in firewalls, access gateways as well as other apparatus. A VPN authentication mechanism uses: passwords, biometrics or cryptographic methods which might be coupled with other authentication mechanisms.
Safe VPNs are built to supply essential privacy for its users. The essence of this consists in cryptographic tunneling protocols. Secure Virtual Private Network ensures message integrity, confidentiality and sender authentication.
We can see how important cryptography is in our lives. These were quite technical details of cryptography use. But let us take various other examples also, not technical!
Abbreviations. Perhaps you are smart, sensible, but you are lost if someone uses an abbreviation and you don’t know where it comes from and what it means. Presume you are on a holiday and hear someone saying: “I got that cool items from a good FTP server”. You do not know what this is about if you aren’t comfortable with File Transfer Protocol, and do not know what it means and where it’s used.
Think of the previous days, the 19th century and the start of the 20th century. Individuals had no mobile phones, no internet, and no e mail sending chance. When they needed to say something to someone who was far away from them, and they did not desire to use phones…what could they do other then visiting that person or those persons? They used the Morse code. This is recognizable to us, but a lot people only know what it means, not how to comprehend or produce Morse code itself. There were two common answers to generate Morse code. One of it worked only for short spaces usually. It absolutely was something like you pick up an object and hit another item to create noise; that noise was the Morse code. Another alternative worked for big spaces too. Suppose it was night time, plus a ship was sailing on the sea or on the ocean, fighting an enormous storm. Back then, folks had a great deal of wooden ships, which couldn’t resist in front of a huge storm’s power. So if there have been individuals on the ground, 1-2 kilometers from the boat location, they could have used a torch to steer the boat safely to the coast. The strong point of the torch Morse coding was that it worked even during day. Most commonly it was utilized to ask for assistance, if someone was in trouble during day. A lot of times there were individuals who’d small boats, got themselves far away from the seashore, and did not understand how to get back to the shoreline. It was terrifying, and individuals could not manage themselves to “think” where to go. So that they waited until a boat came close enough to be on sight, and after that they used the torch, and were monitored if lucky.
We use telephones and mobile phones to communicate. Telephones transmit electric signals over a complex telephone network. This technology allows almost anyone to communicate with almost anyone. The sole problem is given by the fact that phones can certainly be eavesdropped. Eavesdroppers just need three items to do the operation: a pickup apparatus, a transmission link as well as a listening post. If someone has the previously discussed components, it can become an eavesdropper. The pick-up device is most generally a mic or a video camera. These devices can record audio or and video pictures after to be converted to electrical signs. Additionally some listening devices can save information digitally and after that send it to your listening post. The transmission link could be a cable or a radio transmission. A listening post permits monitoring, recording or retransmitting signs. It is often as close as the next room, or several blocks away. An eavesdropper merely has to place a bug into your telephone, and it is prepared. Do not get confused, it’s just a matter of seconds to install a bug. All these approach is based on installing devices. Landlines can also be tapped anywhere between your phone and the telephone company’s office. Anyway, the installer of the telephone tap needs physical access to the telephone cables. There are several techniques to gain access. This second approach is called tapping, which demands no apparatus installing and needs no access to the casualty’s telephone. You’ll be able to protect yourself against eavesdropping by using telephone encrypting devices. Mobile phones are utilized by virtually every second man on ground. It has all the functionality of a simple phone, but it adds more services like: SMS, MMS, E-Mail, Internet, Gaming and Bluetooth. Mobile phones automatically connect to GSM towers or satellites, seeing to which of them is better in time as well as accessible. Cell phone signals could be picked up just as a backyard satellite dish pulls television signals in. To safeguard yourself against eavesdropping, you can get cell phone encrypting apparatus. Luckily there are encrypting devices for both telephones and mobile phones.
Many kids like to devise new things and investigate everything around them! Likely you know about a few children encrypting their messages or diaries like choosing a custom ABC. Which is simple to do. You get an extreme character for every letter of the ABC, and only you and also the ones who need in order to read your messages know which symbol corresponds to which character.
Judgment
We have seen a lot of different places of where cryptography is used in our days or in yesteryear. As a common man, it is possible to observe cryptography everywhere around yourself! It’s so awesome how much science got, and it keeps going and going, getting lots of new knowledge each day. Emails and Internet are used by increasingly more folks daily. We only can not imagine our lives without it. And all of the work and get secured according to cryptography.
RSS
Comments are closed.
no comments
RSS /