Schneier on Security

Schneier on Security

Today, reading computer news on PC MAG, found an interesting subject that was my concern for a while: ENCRYPTION. Some people don't know what is Encryption ought to mean in real life nor in computers.

In english, when you see a friend you will go (hey wassup)! The "wassup" is originally (what's up). In our daily life, we communication using encryption without knowing that we do. The slan language used among people can be considered encryption - that almost everybody knows how to decrypt and understand what has been said. In brief, encryption is converting some talk that everybody understand to some code that not everybody can understand.

Of course there are plenty of ways to encrypt the words before sending them to the other end who knows how to decrypt. SHA-1 is one of those methods, and it is widely used in computer world:

The standard, known as SHA-1, "is used in pretty much every cryptographic protocol out there," says encryption expert Bruce Schneier. "[SHA-1 is] used in SSH, in SSL, in S/MIME, in PGP. It's used in IPSec. VPNs use it. Everybody uses it."

The SHA-1 encryption has been broken! That means it is not secure anymore to buy using your credit card, send secure mail messages, or give VPN access to your local secure network over the internet.

"This is a critical break in SHA that is just at the edge of feasibility," Schneier says. But even though SHA-1 has been broken by academics, that doesn't mean the government or criminals will be able to spy on your encrypted communications immediately.

Knowing this announcement from an academic institute is a reliefe but the question is: Has any hacker crack the SHA-1 encryption and did not annouce he did yet?