Encrypting??

Whay exactallt is encrypting ?...and what does it do?

Thnx for the info

The basic idea of key-based cryptography is that you take a chunk of data (plain text) and scramble it up (ciphertext) so that the original information is hidden beneath a level of encryption. In theory, only the person (or machine) doing the scrambling and the recipient of the ciphertext knows how to decrypt (unscramble) it, because it will have been encrypted using an agreed-upon set of keys or a specific cipher and passphrase (key).

but its not impossible to crack?..just slightly most difficult?..well then it doesnt really do very much good..

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but its not impossible to crack?..just slightly most difficult?..well then it doesnt really do very much good..

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Hardly. I would recommend PGP encryption.

-Cheers-

What kind of encryption
1)command line encryption
2)encrypt any file
3)encrypt text and images
4)128-bit encryption
5)64-bit encryption
6) ECT.......


http://compnetworking.about.com/libr.../aa011303a.htm

and whats that do?
hiws it different?

sorry about all the dumb questions...im just starting out in this 'buisness'

Any form of encryption can be cracked given enough time But the bigger the keys the longer it takes to crack it. and some people will give up after awhile and then there are others who will keep working on it untill it is cracked

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Any form of encryption can be cracked given enough time But the bigger the keys the longer it takes to crack it. and some people will give up after awhile and then there are others who will keep working on it untill it is cracked

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Not necessarily. This only applies to the forms of encryption that we know of. Anyway, the realistic possability of cracking the key is a limiting factor. For instance, cracking 1024-bit RSA key is so far impossible due to lack of computing power.

-Cheers-

computing power?

There are many different types of encryption.
The basic idea is to to make something unreadable unless you know how to read it.

Something like a simple substitution cypher (exchange A &Z, B&Y, C&X, etc etc etc) can normally be broken by hand in a matter of a couple hours or less. Computers can do it in less then a second.

Using a 1-time pad (Basically a list of random characters that are "added" to your text in one of a few different ways) is completely impossible to break unless you reuse the 1-time pad or lose it.

Every other form of encryption falls between those two for how difficult it is to break. The basic idea is how long do you want to keep something safe? Using a 1024 bit RSA key would take a couple thousand years to crack with current technology, so you would be pretty safe using it.