Symmetric and Asymmetric Encryption in Simple Terms
Privacy and the protection of it has never been more important than today. It’s therefore important to know at least the core concepts about encryption. You may have heard about symmetric and asymmetric encryption before. In today’s world, you probably have used either of them without knowing it. In this article I’ll outline to you the basics of symmetric and asymmetric encryption in simple terms.
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Encryption is a method of changing the data so that only authorized people can understand them. It’s a way of protecting sensible data from unauthorized people. Usually you encrypt your data with a cryptographic key. The result is also called cyphertext.
One of the earliest encryption method is the so called Ceasar’s cipher: You basically have an alphabet that you shift to the left or the right to a certain number of times, so that each letter now corresponds to another letter in the alphabet. Instead of using the “normal” alphabet to write your secret message, you are using the shifted alphabet. Doing so will now obfuscate the original…
