In the 21st century, people are always on the move and often don’t have time for face-to-face communication, so they use various messengers and other communication methods to maintain friendly or working relationships. But everyone values their privacy, so another type of encryption comes to the rescue.

End–to–end or end-to-end encryption – is a method of encrypting messages between party A (the recipient) and party B (the sender) so that only they have access to decrypt and read the data. At the same time, third parties do not have access to the information.

History of the method

In 1981, the first idea and need for secure digital communication appeared. It was at that time that SMTP, an email standard that everyone had to use for communication, was introduced.

However, in the 1990s, the world began to implement Pretty Good Privacy. It was end-to-end encryption software. However, the work done by programmer Phil Zimmerman was not as successful as planned.

The next step towards the desired result was taken in 2013. He was influenced by the information report on encryption and privacy from Edward Snowden. After that, the development of E2EE began and many applications and messengers started using it.

This method of encryption has gained popularity due to the announcement by Facebook that they will implement it on all their social networks and platforms.

General principles of end-to-end encryption

The main advantage of end-to-end encryption is that even the server that connects users to each other cannot access their personal communications (text, file, video, and audio calls).

End-to-end encryption is implemented in two stages:

• Encryption – data is encrypted using a cryptographic algorithm that converts the message into an encrypted form on the sender’s device.
• Decryption – at this stage, the data is decrypted using the same cryptographic algorithm as encryption on the recipient’s device.

Whatsapp, Signal, or Google Duo use this method, so only the sender and the recipient can read and decrypt them. This process is called
“key exchange”.

Symmetric and asymmetric algorithms can be used for key exchange. Moreover, they are stored only on devices that belong to the sender and recipient.

Advantages and disadvantages of the end-to-end encryption method

Disadvantages:

There is only one drawback that users often mention. This is his security. They explain their opinion as follows: criminals can use this encryption method knowing that neither technology companies nor government officials can decrypt the data. They argue that law-abiding people have no need to keep their messages and calls secret.

Advantages:

• high level of user data confidentiality;
• increases security and makes it harder for unauthorized access to information;
• is easy to use, as most programs that use it have a clear interface.

Used in:

• messengers, such as: WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, etc;
• email, such as ProtonMail and Tutanota;
• cloud storage, such as Tresorit and Sync.com;
• search engine DuckDuckGo.

Thus, the effectiveness and importance of end-to-end encryption continues to grow, emphasizing the importance of making informed choices about technologies and services to ensure digital security.