Web site security is a complex and perhaps even controversial subject. On one side there are individuals whom regard themselves as the freedom fighters of the technology and information era; on the other side there are those who view this as a form of modern terrorism. Whatever the case, breaking into a computer system without consent is, without question, a crime.
It is convention to use a protected connection when gathering sensitive data such as the personal information of a visitor of a Web site. The security levels of those protected connections currently in popular use are “none”, 40-bit, 56-bit, and 128-bit listed from lowest to highest level of page security.
Encryption is a very effective tool in protecting information from unauthorized access. Data is scrambled before transmission, making it illegible until the recipient for whom the information is intended unscrambles the contents, restoring them to their original condition. While this tool is useful for safeguarding the information during transmission, it cannot guarantee privacy after the data has been deciphered on the other end.
Encryption is an algorithmic process that converts...