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Why encryption?
Whether you're discussing your company's strategies and trade secrets or writing a romantic note to your significant other, you have a very legitimate reason -- if not a fundamental right -- to ensure that only your intended recipient is reading what you have to say. Just as we put our letters in envelopes and curtains on our windows, it is only reasonable to take some basic steps to bring some actual privacy to our private Internet conversations.
| Business Communications |
Individual Communications |
- Business Financial Information
- Security / Login Codes
- Corporate Strategy, Planning, Bidding, Trade Secrets, etc.
- Salary Information and other Personal Employee Information
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- Personal Messages
- Financial / Bank Account Information
- Personal Security Information - schedules, plans, vacations…
- Password / Login information
- Medical Information
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But who's listening? 
Listening in on unencrypted email, instant messages or chat sessions can be trivially easy for anyone who knows how.
Your unencrypted text is openly available to...
- Almost anyone who works for your Internet Service Provider,
- Almost anyone who works for the recipient's Internet Service Provider.
- Anyone who operates one of the 5-20 Internet routers and switches which your message passes through.
- Anyone with physical access to the switching equipment at the phone company.
- Anyone with commonly available "hacking" software either on your local network, or on the recipient's local network (For cable modem users, this also includes other cable modem users in your neighborhood.)
Those who are motivated to eavesdrop run the gamut from business competitors, to hackers trying to enhance their status, to foreign intelligence services, to criminals seeking to steal your identity, to the simply curious. In all cases it's worth taking some basic steps to protect your privacy.
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