What Is Encryption?

Relax. We'll talk through this in plain words — no textbook voice.

What you'll walk away with

Understand what encryption is, without any of the intimidation
Apply this concept right away in real-world scenarios
Learn to avoid security risks for both yourself and others

Let's think about this for a second

Symmetric encryption uses a single key for both encryption and decryption — it's fast, but securely sharing that key is hard (if an attacker intercepts it, they can read all the data). Asymmetric encryption uses a key pair — a public key (which can be shared freely) and a private key (kept to yourself) — data encrypted with the public key can only be decrypted with the matching private key. HTTPS uses asymmetric encryption to kick off a connection, then switches to symmetric encryption for speed.

Let's connect this to a real scenario

SSH keys (remember these from the Linux tutorial) are a real-world example of asymmetric encryption too — you keep the private key on your own machine and copy the public key to the server, letting you log in securely without a password. End-to-end encrypted messaging apps (Signal, WhatsApp) encrypt messages so that no one but the sender and receiver can read them — not even the server in between.

Able to distinguish symmetric from asymmetric encryption
Never share your private key
Understand the basic concept behind how HTTPS works

Let's walk through it together

text

Symmetric:  Key A  →  encrypt/decrypt (key တစ်ခုတည်း)
Asymmetric: Public Key → encrypt
            Private Key → decrypt (matching pair ပဲ ဖွင့်နိုင်)

HTTPS = Asymmetric (connection setup) + Symmetric (actual data transfer)

You should see

You'll be able to explain the trade-off between symmetric and asymmetric encryption.

Try it in 5 minutes

Revisit the SSH key pair (from the Linux tutorial) and write down how it relates to the concept of asymmetric encryption.

A quick word of caution

Never share a private key file over email or chat — if it leaks, an attacker can authenticate as you.

Easy traps

Confusing private keys with public keys
Assuming a whole website's content is 'safe and trustworthy' just because it has HTTPS — HTTPS only encrypts the transmission

Now try it yourself

Revisit the SSH key pair (from the Linux tutorial) and write down how it relates to the concept of asymmetric encryption.

You'll know it worked when: You'll be able to explain the trade-off between symmetric and asymmetric encryption.