Motivation for Secure Encryption

With technologies emerging like the electric telegraph in 1753, there was an increased motive to use more secure methods of encryption. The main reason why encryption becomes more important when transitioning from sending physical messages to electrical ones is that you have less control of your message in transit. With a physical message, you could give it to a trusted messenger to ensure that it is safely delivered. Encryption would only be needed if your messenger could somehow be compromised. With the technology of communicating via electric signals, messages would no longer need couriers, and the messages could travel farther and faster. This meant that unless you had your own personal and secure line to your recipient, you could not control your message in transit easily. Additionally, it becomes much simpler for an attacker to eavesdrop on the line to intercept your message, and you would have virtually no way of detecting this. So, to ensure that it remains confidential you must encrypt it and encrypt it well.

The most prominent modern technology to change the way we communicate is the Internet. Huge amounts of data are communicated across the web at a constant rate, all around the globe. Due to the interconnected nature of the Internet, it is not difficult to intercept messages while being transported. Also, with computers, we can do calculations very quickly so brute forcing weak encryption is very feasible. This has led to many innovations in encryption. Today, messages encrypted using methods such as AES or RSA are secure against all practical cryptanalysis and cracking attempts, even though the message can be easily seen in transit by an attacker. The modern computer, like the electric telegraph, have created the necessity for more advanced methods of cryptography. As technology continues to advance, encryption will have to keep up.