jtotheizzoe:

Just How Strong is Modern Internet Encryption?

You go about your business, checking your bank balance, buying Farmville tokens (or whatever it is that people buy in Farmville, maybe hay?), maybe you buy a shirt on Threadless, some new artisan cocktail bitters on Fab (I just got some), and that book from your wish list on Amazon that you probably won’t have time to read but at least now it’s on your bookshelf. All the while putting sensitive, possibly damaging information in the hands of a little security icon in the corner of your browser. Encryption.

So how tough would it be for someone to intercept your data, encrypted with today’s SSL algorithms? Well, the newest 2048-bit “keys” are so complex, that a normal desktop computer would need to work for 6.4 quadrillion years in order to crack the code.

In other words, almost 500,000 times longer than the age of the universe. Of course, that says nothing about getting your password stolen from the inside, like the fiasco that recently happened with Yahoo, but it sounds like the transmitted data itself will be safe until Earth is a cold block of ice consumed by a dead star.

Into infographics? They got one of those here. There’s a full explanation of the math behind the encryption at the link up top for you data geeks.

(via DigiCert)