Digital communications that take place on the Internet follow proper protocol for receiving and sending messages, audio, video, and other such media. These protocols are put in place to make sure that the media shared remains completely and promptly secure for each and every user and also to ensure the ease of access and to cater to the privacy aspects of users. The idea of this whole thing, according to users, is that they can send and receive stuff over the Internet without this stuff getting fished by third-party members or business enterprises. 

They think that the whole thing is private, but the truth is that each and every communication is being recorded actively and stored by third-party systems and search engines. Why does this happen, you might inquire? The very reason is that your messages need to bounce off a dedicated server for the sake of reaching their intended recipient; now; now, this server in charge of bouncing these messages to and for is actually a hook that fishes out some of these messages or all of them and anyone who is in control of the server can read those messages. 

But don’t you worry, with the advancements in technology and better software procedures and practices, end-to-end encryption has become a thing and could very much act as a potential solution for this problem. End-to-end encryption is nothing but a common practice that is being used extensively in the communication industry and within social media platforms which encrypts any and all communications that take place between a sender and a receiver. 

All of this happens in such a way that only the parties involved are able to decrypt the messages and actually read or interact with them however they like. But before you can get into end-to-end encryption and dig out more stuff about it, you must at first try to understand how those Unencrypted messages that have nothing to do with end-to-end encryption work?

Working Mechanism of Unencrypted Messages

As explained earlier, it is necessary that you understand how unencrypted messages work and the proper science behind these before you move towards an understanding of end-to-end encryption. The process is quite simple; you use a smartphone for the sake of installing a social media app that will allow you to send and receive messages and plain texts with your friends and loved ones. Download the app, make an account and then head on to the message section to write something. 

Now that you have written a message, you have to enter the details of the recipient; after doing that, you just post the message, and it goes right towards a central server. The server acknowledges the message and all the preliminary coding which comes with it that helps the server to recognize it as one of its own, and then it will pass the message to your friend. This is a basic client-to-server configuration. Your phone acts as the client, and it is not doing much but simply typing the messages, whereas the server takes care of everything else. 

You must understand that the managers and owners of these servers do act as potential middlemen. Suppose there are two users and they are communicating data with each other, but they don’t do it directly but post their messages, and these reach a central server, and then it sends these texts over to the other person. Now the messages that are sent towards the server are properly encrypted, and this type of security is known as transport layer security which helps in the proper encryption of messages and communications that take place between server and client. This way, no third party or individual could fish into those messages that are being communicated between the client and the server. 

Now, these types of measures allow hackers or other people that don’t have any access or validity to approach these messages from accessing any of the data or content of what is being delivered. But that doesn’t necessarily stop the server from reading your messages. Therefore the need for end-to-end encryption becomes imminent. 

Suppose the sender is sending a message to the receiver, but it reaches the server first as all communication takes place through it. With the help of end-to-end encryption, the sender has encrypted their message with a potential cryptographic key which only the receiver would be able to decrypt now the server is completely blacked out and it can’t read anything, and therefore the only thing that is left for it to do is to deliver the message to the receiver. Therefore, it completely saves you any potential breach of your privacy, all thanks to end-to-end encryption.

Working Mechanism of End-to-End Encryption Protocol

The very term end-to-end means that the very start and the end of a communication, text, or any other media are completely encrypted, and no one either outside of the communication channel or the server that is acting as a middleman can access these communications. The communication in question can be anything; it can be plain text, video, voice message, or even voice calls and video calls that take place on multiple social media channels nowadays. Perforated cryptography keys are embedded into each and every communication that the sender is progressing towards the receiver so that only the receiver can decrypt the communication leaving the server system completely out of any power. 

This is an extremely sophisticated system which was fairly necessary in the modern world because even the server systems or people who manage these can’t be trusted to keep the messages and other communication aspects taking place between sender and receiver confidential. This directly hit the privacy of the involved parties, and therefore a proper mechanism was to be developed that could take care of the whole situation, and the end-to-end encryption became that something. 

You might be thinking, what is so special about the cryptography key that is at the center of each and every message that the sender is propagating towards the receiver? You must know that a key exchange system is developed which allows the intended parties to trade and share information that is confidential with each other even if the communication takes place or passes through a hostile environment. 

Diffie-Hellman’s Key Exchange and its Use in End-to-End Encryption

Some of the renowned cryptographers by the name of Whitfield Diffie, Ralph Merkle, and Martin Hellman conceived the idea behind end-to-end encryption. This was considered a truly remarkable revolution in the cryptographic world, which allowed certain parties to exchange information with each other without any single person, entity, or organization taking a peek into what is being shared or distributed using this specific channel that was constructed between the intended parties. 

This development of a key element or cryptographic entity allowed people to share information with each other without having to worry about the people who work constantly overseeing this exchange taking place. Now the information is being shared with the servers reading through the data of the communication, but it can’t see through or make any sense of the data because it lacks the key that only the sender and receiver enjoy. That is why there is no compromising the communication taking place between the intended parties. You don’t require the physical entanglement of these keys because these are embedded digitally into whatever piece of communication you are trying to send or receive. 

The whole process is pretty automatic, which means that you would be sending an end-to-end encrypted message or some other media without you knowing anything about it. This cryptography key that gets exchanged within the message from sender to receiver is nothing but a long linear chain of numbers and cryptographic elements that the receiver would be able to decrypt. Because the key to doing so is tied with the receiver’s address, and unless the server or any other middleman involved in the process could act as the receiver, which they literally can’t then there is no exposing the information that is being shared between those parties. 

This is nothing different than the usual; certain elements, key phrases, or actions that are used by people who are in on the joke and no one standing next to them who doesn’t know about those certain practices can make any sense of it. Suppose two people who speak Chinese are communicating with each other while an Englishman is watching their lips move and the smiles that they are jolting out without understanding even a single word that both of those China men are speaking. 

This is the perfect depiction of how end-to-end encryption works; both the receiver and sender are on an identical language stream, whereas the server speaks a completely different language and don’t have even the minutest idea of what is going on or how it can understand the message that is being transferred. With the help of end-to-end encryption, both the sender and receiver have developed a proper technique through which they can exchange information and media with each other without the server taking a peek into it. Therefore the use of a key exchange system is elementary when it comes to end-to-end encryption.

Advantages and Disadvantages of End-to-End Encryption

In a communication setup that didn’t have any kind of screening process to distinguish between the messages and communications taking place between a sender and a receiver, end-to-end encryption plays a rather incredible role. It helps in generating great confidentiality and helping in the enhancement of the overall security of the communication taking in between the intended parties. Many giant tech companies have employed end-to-end encryption protocol to make things more secure, thus giving users a safe environment to communicate. In such systems, third parties cannot make decisions. Instead, the whole communication takes place only between sender and receiver.

This is a technology that was a rather significant win for privacy enthusiasts around the world because no one likes someone else to read through their journal or diary, so why should anyone interfere or take a peek inside the texts and or media that is being shared by two people. The application of end-to-end encryption is flawless; it can be integrated into day-to-day use applications, which makes it more convenient and straightforward for people to use. There is no stripped action that a user has to undertake for the sake of getting on with end-to-end encryption; there is no key that you tap, no button you press, or some other tedious task that you would have to do to get your hands on the end-to-end encryption. 

This is a mechanism that is active by default; as soon as you type a message or select a media for it to be shared with your friends or family, the mechanism will kick in and take care of the whole thing for you. You must not think of end-to-end encryption as something that is only useful for criminals or people who are in pursuit of making sense of the communication taking place between two parties. 

Some of the most secure companies out there could become susceptible to hacking or other cyberattacks either due to their own negligence or not using proper encryption techniques for the sake of masking the true contents of the information that is being shared between them their users. If the sensitive data is not properly encrypted, then anyone outside the network can access it, which could lead to other malicious instances lighting up like a Christmas tree. Now, this doesn’t mean that a company or an entity who is using end-to-end encryption can’t be hacked or fall victim to a cyber attack, but even if they do, hackers won’t be able to extract anything out of the data because it will be properly encrypted, this is something that is extremely secure and next level.

There is potentially a downside to end-to-end encryption, and whether or not it should be considered a downside actually depends on your own perspective or how you care to see this whole proposition. To some people who don’t support end-to-end encryption, it is a useless element that must not be made part of any privacy legislation because this way, governments, and tech companies won’t be able to get to the messages or the data that is shared between people using secure communications encrypted properly by the technology. 

These people think that law-abiding citizens should not have anything to hide from the government, and therefore there is no potential need for end-to-end encryption. With that being said, if the prospect of end-to-end encryption was to be removed, then the government, along with other organizations, would be able to grab complete control of whatever information is being passed in between the users. This is going to completely destroy or wipe out the initial purpose of end-to-end encryption. You must also understand that the applications out there that are using end-to-end encryption at the moment are not completely secure. The content of the messages might be encrypted, but these still can be exposed on the endpoints, which means that smartphones or other electronic agreement that is used to transfer or see this information would have potentially visible endpoints. 

This is not primarily a drawback that concerns end-to-end encryption, but it is something that you must keep in mind. A potential downside that doesn’t necessarily approach end-to-end encryption is that the device of the user could get stolen, in which case the contents could become vulnerable. If by any chance, the device comes into the hands of hackers or cyber attackers, then they could easily bypass the security code of the device and gain access to all the media that is present on the smartphones. 

Another element that you must consider here is your device getting hacked in a potential cyber-attack or might be running malware that could spy over the information that is being received and sent from this potential endpoint. These don’t really concern end-to-end encryption, but it is normal to presume that this is something that doesn’t cover you 100%, and you must still practice self-awareness and take steps to ensure that your device and the data present on it is completely secure. If you care about your digital privacy and want to stay secure in a space that is filled with intruders and people who want to harm you digitally, the use of end-to-end encryption is a must. 

You should try your best to adapt applications in which this technology is fairly active and leave those that are using no encryption practices whatsoever. This way, you would be able to battle out any privacy-oriented issues that might emerge in this electronic age. Remember, end-to-end encryption is not going to save you magically, but it will make the prospect of your information getting leaked or your communications being tapered a less intensive happening.