A Beginner’s Guide To Encryption: What It Is And How To Set It Up

Keep on hearing about encryption but still not sure what it involves? Heres a basic introduction to encryption, when you should use it, and how to set it up.

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Encryption is a method of protecting data from people you dont want to see it. For example, when you use your credit card on Amazon, your computer encrypts that information so that others cant steal your personal data as it is being transferred. Similarly, if you have a file on your computer you want to keep secret only for yourself, you can encrypt it so that no one can open that file without the password. Its useful for everything from sending sensitive information to securing your email, keeping your cloud storage safe, and even hiding your entire operating system.

Encryption, at its core, is similar to those decoder rings you played with when you were younger. You have a message, you encode it using a secret cipher, and only other people with the cipher can read it. Anyone else just sees gibberish. Obviously, this is an incredibly simplified explanation. The encryption in your computer is far more complex and there are different types of encryption that use multiple decoder rings but thats the basic idea.

There are also different levels of security when it comes to encryption. Some types, for example, are more secure but take longer to decode. Few, if any, encryption methods are 100 per cent foolproof. If you want a more detailed explainer on how encryption works, check out this article from the How-To Geek and this article from HowStuffWorks. They explain a few different kinds of encryption and how they keep you safe online.

The short answer: yes. Things can be stolen even if you dont share your computer. All someone needs is a few minutes in front of the keyboard to retrieve anything they want. A login password wont protect you, either breaking into a password-protected computer is insanely easy.

So should you encrypt your sensitive files? Yes. But theres a bit more to it than that. You have two big choices when it comes to encryption: do you just encrypt the important files , or do you encrypt your entire drive? Each has pros and cons:

We generally recommend against average users encrypting their entire drive. Unless you have sensitive files all over your computer, or have other reasons for encrypting the entire thing, its easier to encrypt the sensitive files and call it a day. Full disk encryption is more secure, but can also much more problematic if you dont put in the work to keep everything backed up safely (and then encrypt those backups as well).

That said, well show you how to do both in this guide. Well talk a bit more about each situation in their individual sections below.

If you need to keep just a few files safe from prying eyes, you can encrypt them with the free, open-source, cross-platform TrueCrypt. These steps should work on Windows, Mac and Linux. Note that if youre encrypting files to send them over the internet, you can also use this previously mentioned 7-Zip method.

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A Beginner's Guide To Encryption: What It Is And How To Set It Up