A Better Understanding of Encryption

Not to scale, but graphically demonstrates the progressive levels of encryption.

Encryption Facts

• All credit card and internet banking transactions use 128-bit encryption, which has never been compromised. NOTE: When you hear about a business that has had 150,000 credit card numbers stolen, for example, it is not because someone cracked the encryption code. It is because they stole the database that stored the information, and used a username and password to access the data. Individuals interested in stealing information will find the easiest route to that end. Cracking the most advanced encryption algorithms is not the route they take. They look for holes in the security system. These holes include outdated software, poor username and password combinations, etc.
• Your data never leaves its advanced 448-bit encryption protection.
• Technically, 128-bit is unbreakable—448-bit is exponentially stronger.

Can it be Broken?

"Not in our lifetime" is statistically the only answer.

Example: 64-bit RC4 According to information we found, the 64-bit RC4 Encryption Standard required 4 years and 46,000 machines working 24 x 7 x 365 to find a single key for a simple message. 64-bit RC5 has yet to broken. The next common levels are 128-bit, 256-bit and 448-bit.

Example: A 160-bit encryption key: If one billion computers were each searching one billion keys per second, it would take more than 10 to the power of 13 years to decipher 160-bit encryption. That's 10,000,000,000,000+ years...that's a long time.

We use 448-bit encryption! That's 10 to the power of 145 or 10,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

NOTE: For those who enjoy role-playing as the devil's advocate, if someone does crack the encryption algorithm in our lifetime, then we'll simply change the algorithm. :-)

What do 448-bit Encrypted Filenames Look Like On Our Server Clusters?

Click here for an example of an encrypted file system...

What does a 448-bit Encrypted File Look Like?

Click here for an example of an encrypted document...

NOTE: This is a confidential document. Can you tell?