If you surf around the Internet, one of the words you will come across is “encryption.” Many people have a legitimate concern about identity theft, and protecting your personal information is an important task to undertake. With all of the wireless technology available, there are a number of ways for hackers to intercept your data files. One of the best ways to protect your files is to encode your data.

Encryption is the process of taking a plain text file, and running it through an algorithm (or program) which “scrambles up” the letters, making it completely illegible. Usually, the person encoding the text file assigns a password to the file, which is needed to “unlock” or “decode” the file, restoring it to its original state. The stronger the password you choose (for example, making it longer, or using a combination of letters and numbers instead of just letters), the safer your file.

One question to ask yourself is this: why encode your data? Most people encode their data to protect themselves against identity theft. If your sensitive data is encoded, even if a hacker or other nare-do-well gains possession of the data files, they will still not be able to read it unless they steal the password. (This is why it is important to store your passwords on a piece of good, old-fashioned *paper*, away from your computer.)

How, you may ask, does one encode a text file? One common method is to use an off-the-shelf package like Microsoft Word. After you have created a text file, there is a feature where you can tell the software to encode the file, and assign a password. Anyone trying to open the file without the password will only see a mishmash of letters. When a “legitimate” user with the password opens the file, they enter the password, and the file appears as it was originally created.

The big question is: does this process really work? Does it really make it impossible for people to get to your data?

And the answer is yes. It would take the best minds in the world, using the largest and fastest computers, years and years to break the algorithms used to encode your data. Even the encoding algorithms used in everyday software such as MS Word provide incredibly strong protection.

What happens if a hacker gets a hold of your file? Usually, s/he will know that trying to “crack the code” is impossible. Instead of taking that approach, s/he will try to “guess” the password. If you use simple words, like “fluffy” (the name of your poodle), the hacker has a much better chance of guessing the password. On the other hand, if you use a password like, “s9j5hqz3c41m2,” the hacker will have a much harder time coming across the correct sequence of characters. (A character is either a letter, a number, or a punctuation mark.)

Once you have mastered the fairly simple steps to encoding your data, you may rest assured that you have taken one very important step towards creating “information-age-peace-of-mind.”