The search for security
From the earliest hieroglyphics of the ancient Egyptians to modern quantum cryptology, humans have explored ways to keep information safe from prying eyes.
The coding (and decoding) of information has changed the course of history, from the execution of Mary Queen of Scots to the Second World War. And, as we teeter on a new era of quantum computing and AI, encryption matters more than ever.
“Encryption is a foundation,” says Whitfield Diffie, mathematician and pioneer of the public-key cryptography developed in the 1970s. “It’s a basic block. It underlies the security of everything we do on the internet.”
Creative solutions throughout the ages
Encryption and innovation have long been happy bedfellows. Not so much for the slaves of ancient Greece, however, as the Spartans would carve messages on their heads, let their hair grow back and send them on their way to deliver encrypted messages.
Not surprisingly, the Renaissance was a particularly fecund era for encryption. The invention of an ingenious symmetric cipher using polyalphabetic substitution changed the game forever and its basic principle of a single key still applies today.
Since the dawn of the age of the computer in the 1970s, encryption has gained fresh significance. A super-secure form of algorithmic encryption called public-key cryptology was created by Stamford scholars Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman in 1976. It allowed for the safe communication of data and has helped take encryption beyond the military and government. Encryption now affects everyone who manages finances online, has a health record, votes or uses app messaging services.
The role of encryption has never been more critical and the battle between the coder and the decoder wages on.
A means of protection
Electronic data is largely protected by two fundamental approaches to encryption: symmetric and asymmetric (public key). The two approaches use different methods but are sometimes used in combination (hybrid cryptosystems).
Public-key cryptology (asymmetric) uses two encrypted keys (private and public), to protect and unlock data. This system is essential to blockchain technology and ideal for digital signatures.
Symmetric encryption uses a single key to both encrypt and decrypt information. It’s based on the same principles of early forms of encryption, as both the sender and the receiver have the same key.
The most secure current system of protection is the symmetric AES 256-bit, meaning there are 256 ‘bits’ to the key. It’s used by the US government and is believed to be impenetrable from brute force attacks. This is paramount in the 21st century as encryption has lost none of its political heft. Cyberterrorism is a stealthy enemy and a major threat to national security, banks, critical infrastructure and health systems.
Modern warfare has also confirmed the significance of encrypted messaging. End-to-end encryption service Signal was downloaded en masse during the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine enabling the population to communicate in secrecy.
Meanwhile, governments continue to butt heads with tech companies and privacy activists over encryption services. Authorities argue for ‘backdoor’ access to scan messages without the owner’s permission to thwart criminal activity. Opponents argue that encryption is the foundation of cybersecurity. Furthermore, there are questions regarding legislation, such as the recently passed Online Safety Bill in the UK, as it compromises human privacy rights.
A look ahead
The arrival of quantum computing is now. This incredibly powerful technology promises supremacy for new developments and discovery in the world of health, finance and communications. It also poses some serious issues for cryptography with the potential to break existing encryption algorithms.
Post-quantum cryptography is a field of research that companies and governments are heavily investing in to offset this threat. The traditional approach of using mathematical algorithms to encode data is being abandoned in the field of quantum cryptography, which adopts the unique properties of quantum particles to secure information.
While the future may feel uncertain what is clear is that it’s a brave new world for encryption, and it matters now more than ever.