Sat, May 10, 2025 | Updated 2:04AM IST

The Ethics of Cryptography: Balancing Privacy and Security

Times of Bennett | Updated: Apr 27, 2023 00:51
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-By Akshara Sharma
Cryptography is the science of using mathematical techniques to secure information and protect it from unauthorized access. In the digital age, cryptography is more important than ever as we rely on computers to store and transmit sensitive data. Cryptography is used to protect everything from credit card numbers to state secrets.
At its core, cryptography is about encoding information so that it can only be read by someone who has the key to decode it. The most commonly used encryption methods are symmetric and asymmetric encryption. Symmetric encryption uses the same key to encrypt and decrypt data. Both sender and receiver have a key and use it to encrypt and decrypt messages. This method is fast and efficient, but has a major weakness: the key must be shared between the sender and the receiver, making it vulnerable to eavesdropping.
Asymmetric encryption, also known as public key encryption, uses two keys: a public key and a private key. The public key is available to anyone who wants to send a message to the owner of the private key. The sender encrypts the message with the receiver's public key, and the receiver decrypts it with its private key. This method is slower than symmetric encryption, but it is much more secure because the private key never leaves the owner's possession.
One of the most important applications of cryptography is the creation of digital signatures. A digital signature is a way to ensure that a message or document has not been tampered with during transmission. A digital signature is created by compressing the message and encrypting the hash with the sender's private key. The receiver can then verify the signature by decrypting the hash with the sender's public key and comparing it to the hash value of the original message.
Cryptography also plays a vital role in secure communication on the Internet. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) are two protocols that use encryption to protect data transmission between browsers and servers. These protocols use a combination of symmetric and asymmetric encryption to create a secure connection and protect sensitive information such as credit card numbers and passwords.
In conclusion, cryptography is a complex and vital field with many applications in today's digital world. From secure communications to digital signatures, encryption plays an important role in protecting sensitive data from unauthorized access. As technology advances, encryption becomes even more important in securing our digital lives.