As more and more account numbers, credit cards, and personal
information begins streaming through the web, it becomes
ever more important to adopt some form of data protection.
The most common form of data protection is encryption.
An encrypted transmission is a transmission that contains
plain text data which has been mathematically altered so as
to be unreadable, but which can be transformed back to the
original by a reverse mathematical algorithm.
Consider the simple encryption algorithm used in Arthur C.
Clarke's 2001
of letter = letter + 1 in which HAL is turned into IBM.
Notice that H + 1 = I, A + 1 = B and L + 1 = M
Of course modern cryptographic algorithms are MUCH more
complex and hard to solve backwards.
