A teaching module to introduce encryption for web users

This paper presents the components of a module of approximately two hours duration that is designed to expose students to the basic functioning of a private/public key encryption system and how it is employed in the web environment. The intended audience is students with basic computer literacy skills. The focus of the paper is the uses of encryption without focusing on the underlying mathematics of encryption. Since the Internet is an unsecured and relatively unregulated medium, the user must be able to identify the level of confidentiality, integrity, and accessibility that the different uses of encryption will provide. The module provides an efficient way of presenting the techniques, issues, and nomenclature of current encryption systems to a relatively unsophisticated audience in a limited period of time.