Here's something most people don't think about: the internet wasn't built for privacy. Engineers in the 1970s cared about getting computers to talk to each other, not keeping those conversations secret. That decision haunted us for decades.
Now over 95% of web traffic runs through encrypted connections. Getting here took a lot of work.
What Happens When You See That Padlock
That little padlock in your browser's address bar? It means your connection uses HTTPS instead of plain HTTP. The difference sounds technical, but it's actually pretty straightforward.
When your browser connects to an encrypted site, it first checks the server's digital certificate. Think of it like checking someone's ID at a bar. Once that checks out, both sides agree on temporary encryption keys through something called TLS (Transport Layer Security). After that, everything you send gets scrambled into gibberish that only the destination server can unscramble.
Anyone snooping on your WiFi sees random noise instead of your passwords and credit card numbers.
HTTPS Has a Blind Spot
HTTPS does a solid job protecting what you're doing on a website. But it doesn't hide which websites you're visiting. Your internet provider can still see you went to WebMD at 2am, even if they can't see what symptoms you searched for.
That metadata tells its own story. For people who need actual privacy (journalists, activists, anyone on sketchy public WiFi), understanding what is vpn technology fills in that gap. VPNs wrap everything, including your destination addresses, inside another encrypted tunnel.
It's encryption on top of encryption.
The Math That Makes It Work
Modern encryption relies on math problems that computers are terrible at solving. Kaspersky's breakdown of encryption methods walks through how RSA encryption works by using huge prime numbers. Multiplying two primes together is easy. Figuring out which two primes made that product? Basically impossible at scale.
AES takes a different route. It uses the same key for scrambling and unscrambling (symmetric encryption), and AES-256 has 2^256 possible key combinations. That's more possibilities than there are atoms in the visible universe. Banks and government agencies bet their security on it.
Beyond Your Browser
Encryption isn't just a browser thing. Signal and WhatsApp use end-to-end encryption where even the companies running those apps can't read your messages. Only you and the person you're texting have the keys.
Email is a different story. Most email bounces between servers are completely unencrypted, which is why ProtonMail and Tutanota exist. Banking apps, healthcare portals, anything handling sensitive data leans hard on encrypted connections.
Forbes reported that 83% of enterprise IT leaders now see encryption as their main weapon against breaches. And that number keeps climbing.
Does Encryption Slow Things Down?
It used to. Back in the early HTTPS days, the extra computational work noticeably dragged down page loads. People disabled it on slow connections because browsing felt sluggish.
That's mostly fixed now. TLS 1.3 cut the initial handshake time in half. Chip manufacturers bake encryption circuits directly into processors, so the math happens almost instantly. Google found that turning on HTTPS across their services added less than 1% CPU overhead.
You might notice a tiny delay on ancient hardware. Otherwise, it's invisible.
The Tricky Parts
Here's where it gets complicated. Network administrators need to spot malware and data theft. But if everything's encrypted, how do they see what's happening? Many companies use TLS inspection, which decrypts traffic at the network edge, scans it, then re-encrypts it before sending it along.
This creates its own problems. Wikipedia documents how sloppy TLS inspection setups can actually make security worse by introducing certificate errors.
And then there's quantum computing. Current encryption works because regular computers can't crack the math fast enough. Quantum computers might change that equation. Cryptographers are already building quantum-resistant algorithms, but rolling them out everywhere will take years.
Where This Goes Next
The trend toward encrypting everything isn't slowing down. Browsers now slap "Not Secure" warnings on sites without HTTPS, pressuring even hobby blogs to get certificates. DNS over HTTPS hides the address lookups that used to be visible to anyone watching your traffic.
People expect privacy by default now. The plumbing of the internet keeps evolving to deliver it.