My Facebook messenger wants to end-to-encrypt my messages but I don’t know what that means. I tried googling but still don’t get it, I’m not that great with technology. Someone please eli5
In: Technology
In addition to the other answers, here’s another perspective. Suppose you are sending a message to me.
Suppose someone wants to snoop on what you are sending. Suppose it is Facebook, or the government, with mega-resources to tap your phone or internet line. This is called a “man in the middle” attack. If they could do that, they could pretend to be me and fool you into thinking that it is indeed me. They read the message, maybe even change critical bits of that info, then send the modified message to me, pretending to be you. I believe the message thinking it is from you.
The only way to prevent this is that you encrypt it in such a way that the only party that can possibly decrypt it is me. Then even if someone managed to snoop your wire, they’ll have a bunch of binary gobbledygook. At most they can prevent the message from reaching me, but they cannot read or alter your message. It is secure from your end to my end.
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