A handful of arcane mathematicians way back in the 18th and 19th centuries aspired to invent a useless mathematical theory that would shine for its beauty alone, unstained by practical applications.

Nathan Eddy works as an independent filmmaker and journalist based in Berlin, specializing in architecture, business technology and healthcare IT. He is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill ...

Every time you send a text, pay for groceries with your phone, or use your health site, you are relying on encryption. It’s an invisible shield that protects your data from prying eyes. Encryption is ...

Both asymmetric and symmetric encryption are being used by businesses to protect their information. But what are the differences? Read to find out. The growth in information security has given rise to ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. For thousands of years, if you wanted to send a secret message, there was basically one way to do it. You’d scramble the message using a ...

In the context of cryptography, a public key is an alphanumeric string that serves as an essential component of asymmetric encryption algorithms. It is typically derived from a private key, which must ...

A very popular encryption method that uses two keys: a public key and a private key. When a message is sent to a person who is the only one entitled to view it, the sender uses the recipient's public ...

The Diffie-Hellman algorithm was a stunning breakthrough in cryptography that showed cryptographic keys could be securely exchanged in plain sight. Here’s how it works. Whitfield Diffie and Martin ...

Every time you log into your bank, send an email, or connect to a VPN, encryption quietly does the heavy lifting. The internet feels simple. The security underneath it? Anything but simplicity. That’s ...

You're about to wind up your day and use your smartphone to check what's in your smart fridge to decide if you need to pass by the store or request delivery before you get home. You quickly pay for ...