Chapter 16. Data Encryption

In this chapter, we will discuss encryption—the process of obfuscating data in such a way that it is only readable by someone or something that possesses a key that can be used to reverse this obfuscation. A definition I found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encryption sums it up nicely:

In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information (referred to as plaintext) using an algorithm (called cipher) to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key.