If radio waves are just non-visible light waves that are picked up by a vibrating rod, how does a radio wave get “encrypted” so that it can’t be picked up unless it’s unencrypted?
Edit: Everyone keeps commenting that the content of the message is what’s encrypted, not the radio waves itself, but that’s not what I mean. Someone answered that digital signals themselves can be modulated or disguised, which is what I meant when I asked
In: Technology
“Encrypted” radio waves are just radio waves, so they can be picked up by anyone.
The hard part is making sense out of them. There will be some a process with a key unknown to eavesdroppers that turns them into something meaningful.
For example convert to binary, multiply by some secret number, apply modulus.
To as to how the receiver got that key in the first place, check out Shamir’s three pass protocol (example with boxes, actually done with numbers)-
1. A sends a box containing a message to B. The box is locked, but unlike the prior approach, the key stays with A.
2. B adds a second lock and sends the box back to A. The box is now locked with two locks, and neither users’ keys are transmitted.
3. A removes their own lock and re-sends the locked box back to B. The box is now locked only with B’s lock.
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