End-to-End Encryption

End-to-End Encryption

Subject – Governance

Context – Facebook is offering the option of end-to-end encryption of voice and video calls on FB Messenger, along with updated controls for disappearing messages.

Concept –

• End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is a secure line of communication that blocks third-party users from accessing transferred data. When the data is being transferred online, only the sender and recipient can decrypt it with a key.
• Encryption technology involves scrambling or jumbling of the data being transferred in such a way that it can be deciphered only by the sender and the receiver.
• End-to-end encryption technology is much safer because it do away with the requirement of third parties.

Mechanism –

• In the first step, when a sender sends a message, it is in the form of Plaintextthat is ordinary readable text.
• Second, as soon as the data gets onto the network, it gets encrypted that is aprocess of converting ordinary readable text into a code with the help of special keys (a very long string of numbers generated by the software).
• Third when the same data reaches its intended destination, it is decryptedthat is a process of converting back the coded data to readable text with the help of special keys.
• Finally, the intended receiver gets the message in the form of Cipher textthat is the readable text obtained after decryption.