Cryptography in Action
You will encounter cryptography in many forms throughout this book. It is applied to many different technologies and situations and, as such, is something you need to have a firm grasp of.
Some examples of applied cryptography are:
- Public key infrastructure (PKI)
- Digital certificates
- Authentication
- E-commerce
- RSA
- MD-5
- Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA)
- Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
- Pretty Good Privacy (PGP)
- Secure Shell (SSH)
In many cases, encryption technologies are not only an important part of a technology or system but a required part that cannot be excluded. For example, e-commerce and similar systems responsible for performing financial transactions cannot exclude encryption for legal reasons. Introducing encryption to a system does not ensure bulletproof security as it may still be compromised—but encryption does make hackers work a little harder.
