Who uses encryption and why?
Encryption has historically been used for diplomatic communications, as well as military purposes. With the advent of freely available solutions such as PGP, however, anyone can encrypt their communications. Most people do not think of encrypting, for example, their e-mail, because they believe they have “nothing to hide”. However, e-mail is very insecure and there may be lots of information that is not necessarily a secret, but that you would wish to hide from people that you do not know or trust. For example, your credit card number or a password to an online banking site are two things that you probably wouldn’t want others to see. The nature of internet and email communication is that the route data takes towards its destination can go through a dozens of computers, any of which can store a copy of your message. Sending an e-mail is about as secure as sending a postcard. The postcard will go through many hands and any postman, neighbour, or mail sorter can read it. If you don’t wan
