[citw150] CITW 150 L3 Q5

I chose to talk about security as an important issue facing technology users 
today. Specifically, I chose to talk about security regarding online money 
transactions.

eComerce is becoming more and more popular, and the threat of identity theft is 
ever looming in the corner of user's minds. We want to shop in a secure 
environment where we do not want to have to worry about getting our credit card 
numbers, and personal information hijacked by a complete stranger.

One of the most popular encryption methods for online transactions is 128-bit 
SSL Encryption by Verisign. Many popular websites will proudly display that 
they are 128-bit secures, and will provide links to verify their status with 
verisign.net.

This raises the question, "How secure is 128-bit encryption?"

To quote Fred Avolio: "On average, it would take around 2 million million 
million (2 followed by 18 zeroes) years to guess the key."

Hackers, have fun doing that.

All things considered, you have to worry more about spyware on your own 
computer than you have to worry about some hacker intercepting your 
transmission and cracking into the data. I will trust sites which have valid 
Verisign certificates, and If I'm still skeptical I'll check with Verisign to 
see if their certificates are valid and up to date.

Sources: http://www.avolio.com/columns/pkiq+a.html, 
http://www.verisign.com/ssl/ssl-information-center/index.html


-Brandon Burton
Tea Party Response Team leader since 1773.
"Americans drink coffee because they have a habit of mixing their tea with salt 
water." - Old British Saying.
 
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