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Course: Archived AP CSP content > Unit 1

Lesson 5: Archived Secure data transport
Computing
Archived AP CSP content
Archived AP CSP Internet content
Archived Secure data transport
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How can computers send private data?

Google Classroom
We send a whole lot of secure information around the Internet: emails with details on our private life, passwords that we type into login screens, tax documents that we upload to servers.
The TCP/IP protocols send that private data in packets on the same routes as everyone else's data, and unfortunately, cybercriminals figured out ways to look at the data whizzing around the Internet.
Illustrator of a cyber criminal stealing data. A laptop is shown with a browser and a password input field. An arrow goes from the laptop to a server. Above the arrow, there's a pouch that contains the text "Be3tP@ssw0rd3ver" and a smiling cyber criminal looking at the text.
That's where encryption comes in: encrypting data means that we scramble the original data to hide the meaning of the text, while still making it possible for the data to be unscrambled using a secret key.
Encryption enables two people (or computers!) to share private information over open networks.
Illustrator of a cyber criminal unable to steal encrypted data. A laptop is shown with a browser and a password input field. An arrow goes from the laptop to a server. Above the arrow, there's a box that contains a long string of encrypted text that looks like nonsense and an unhappy cyber criminal looking at the text.
In the next video from Code.org, security researcher Mia Epner explains the basics of encryption algorithms.
After that, we'll dive deeper into the encryption algorithms, starting with the simplest symmetric encryption technique and moving on to the asymmetric technique of public key encryption.
Finally, we'll learn how the TLS protocol adds a layer of encryption on top of TCP/IP, using both symmetric and public key encryption to send private data around the Internet.

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