VLog #75 – What is Encryption?

Video – VLog #75

What is data encryption in computer?

Is encrypted good or bad?

What is encryption and example?

Script – VLog #75

Willie Nicol: Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of The Techno Dinosaur Meets The I.T. Geek. I am the Techno Dinosaur, Willie Nicol, called that because I’m digitally challenged. However, I’m also a personal development life coach who helps other people with all their “stuff” in their lives.

Willie Nicol: I’m based in Troon, South Ayrshire, Scotland, U.K. With me again today, as usual, is my compadre, David Logan. So, David, how are you today and where are you?

David Logan: Hi Willie, I’m great. My name is David Logan, the I.T. Geek, the guy who takes the jargon out of technology for you the home-based office worker. And you can take a leaf out of my book you Techno Dinosaurs and I can show you how stuff works, technical stuff, not the mind stuff, but technical stuff! So, there we used the word “stuff” in two different variations. Based here in Annan, southwest of Scotland, United Kingdom.

David Logan: Willie, thank you for the intro.

Willie Nicol: You’re welcome, David. So, today with more of us working at home and having laptops, computers, other devices, it’s very important that we keep our information and our data secure.

Willie Nicol: So, the topic for today is – encryption. So, what is it, how do we get it, and what good is it?

David Logan: Okay. Brilliant topic. Encryption, what is it? So, encryption is, think of a document you type up on your computer and you want to send it to me so that’s what we call plain text, human readable text. Now, if we want to encrypt that, in its basic form, encryption is just changing the characters, the letters in your document to something that’s not readable by human form but it’s all governed by a security key.

David Logan: So, this key, the sender, the encryptor gets a security key and it’s then sent to the receiver with the document. So, what this security key does, it encrypts, encrypts the document which makes it, makes it from human readable to not human readable. Transfer with whatever form of communication you have, pigeon, email, Royal Mail, it comes to me, I’ve got the document and I’ve got the key. Insert the key into the document and it converts it back into human readable form. That is it in simplistic terms, that is what encryption is.

David Logan: So, when we’re looking at secure data, which is your question, so, when we’re out travelling, when you’ve got data on a memory stick or your laptop or your tablet …. You may have customer information, may have your own personal information. Don’t tell me you never, never leave these on a seat in a taxi or a bus. It can happen, trust me, you’ve just got to watch the news, the government laptops that’s left behind are found inside the roads.

David Logan: Encrypted data. So, if somebody does find it, they can’t read it. It’s a load of garbage and the only way that you can read it is to have that correct key to go into the device or into that document to make it human readable.

Willie Nicol: Okay, so, how do we encrypt the document or for that matter your memory stick or your portable device? How do we get that encryption done?

David Logan: So, that’s done, that can be done in two ways. It can be done by hardware on the computer, it’s on the device itself.

David Logan: The simplest way to do it is by software where there’s like all software variants, antivirus, firewalls. You get free software, and you get paid for software. I use free software at the moment …. unusual for the I.T Geek to use free software. I use one called TrueCrypt. So that’s T.R.U.E.C.R.Y.P.T. It’s free but beware. I know in the early days when I started using computers, free software’s not always good.

David Logan: So, if you’re not sure to use a bit of software, speak to somebody with experience, speak to somebody that’s got knowledge, like myself.

Willie Nicol: Okay. So, when you download this software you can encrypt your data on your device, right? So, what is this about having a particular key, where does that come in?

David Logan: That comes in via the software. So, you can set it up, set it up the complexity of the key and the length of the key.

David Logan: Basically, the key is another password that you type into the software. So, if you think about a key, you turn it to unlock that door, or turn it the other way to lock it. So, what we’re doing here is, we’ve got the encryption software and you’ve got your documents which are in an unreadable form right now. You enter your encrypted password in here which will invoke the key to make your document into human readable form. And then, when you want to send it to me, you put the key in and you lock it. You lock it, send it to me. I’ll get the same bit of software, you give me that password for that key and then put in the password in the software and it unlocks it.

Willie Nicol: So, do you send the document and the key separately?

David Logan: You can do, yes. So, therefore the key has to be sent securely as well.

Willie Nicol: And how do you do that?

David Logan: Same as any document, you can encrypt it again and therefore you have a master password for all your stuff. Now, this software which can do it via the internet. So if you look at your email, a lot of email is sent encrypted. So, that’s email communication via the worldwide web. So, passwords are sent over automatically to that person.

Willie Nicol: Okay. I am familiar with password protecting a document because I do that myself for my business invoices. But encrypting the data on my devices is another thing all together and having a key which is essentially just another password, right, to unlock .…

David Logan: Beware! Beware! When you go to encrypt your device, you can make it not useable so be very, very careful. You’re laughing!

Willie Nicol: Yeah!

David Logan: We’ve in the field had the experts when they’ve been playing with it, they’ve had some …. thankfully they’ve had dummy laptops where they’ve had to pick up the hard drives and throw it in the bin. They couldn’t decrypt it!

Willie Nicol: Oh dear. OK.

David Logan: So, be careful what you do as always you need to test stuff, test the stuff which if you lose it, you lose it. You’re not, you’re not, not interfering with production stuff or live data.

Willie Nicol: Okay David, thank you very much for that. I think we’re almost at the end of our time.

Willie Nicol: So, ladies and gentlemen, viewers, that is encryption and I hope that was useful to you. So, if you’ve any questions about encryption or any other I.T. related matters, David’s the man to go to. If you’ve any personal life matters, or “stuff” please come and give me a call.

Willie Nicol: So, all that remains for me to say – thank you David. And to you the viewers, stay safe, stay well and as usual …. have some fun! Bye for now.

David Logan: Thanks a lot Willie for that question this week, brilliant question. Always love talking about my favourite subject I.T. to help you Techno Dinosaurs ease into technology quite easily. Not easy for everybody, it’s always advancing.

David Logan: To you the viewer, please like and share our videos and we can get the word out there and comment below, we need engagement.

David Logan: So, from me, for this week forward I’ll just say what Willie says. Have fun, enjoy yourselves and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do! Have a great week everybody. Cheerio!