Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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the encryption keys, why can't the government just sneak on them? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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disclaimer: I'm just asking to get understanding of the theory behind network traffic encryption, I know this doesn't happen irl most likely.

Let's take https connection for example. I like watching revolutionary things on youtube and do not wish for authorities to know what I am watching, we accept here for the sake of showcase that google won't sell my watch history if asked (LMAO what am I even saying?).
So if I'm not mistaken since youtube has https implemented, our communication is encrypted, the keys are shared only between me and youtube. But when Youtube shares the key with me/my client the first time, is that also encrypted? Wouldn't the same question keep getting answered until there is something unencrypted? I know this is a bit too much unlikely, but if ISP automated the process of gathering keys and decrypting web traffic for a certain site with them for all users, would that work for them?
I'm taking https here as an example, while I have the same question for like VPN.

EDIT: Thank you everybody. I am not a member of this community, but every comment was a golden experience to read!

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

While we're talking about asymmetric encryption, can someone explain to me why you can't decrypt information with the same public key that encrypted it? I understand the analogies (locks on a briefcase, unmixing paint, etc), but I can't "un-analogize" them to understand what's actually going on. Encryption keys aren't physical locks or paint. They're numbers(?). So why can I encrypt something by multiplying by a known public encryption key, but I can't decrypt it by dividing by that same known public key?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

https://www.practicalnetworking.net/series/cryptography/rsa-example/