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Software Engineering vocabulary · APIs, Networking and Security

End-to-end encryption

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

nounCommon term

In software engineering, end-to-end encryption means: Encryption in which only the sender and the intended recipient can read the messages, so even the service provider in the middle cannot see their content.

In Turkish: uçtan uca şifreleme

How it is used

Often shortened to E2EE. Used mostly for messaging apps, video calls and some file-sharing services. Compare it with encryption in transit, where the provider can still read the data on its own servers.

Example sentences

  1. Because the chat app uses end-to-end encryption, the provider cannot hand over message content.

  2. The client asked whether our file transfer service offers end-to-end encryption.

Common collocations

  • end-to-end encrypted
  • E2EE messaging
  • end-to-end encryption by default
  • encryptionTurning data into an unreadable form that can only be turned back with the right key, so that people without the key cannot read it.
  • public-key cryptographyA type of cryptography that uses a pair of related keys: a public key that can be shared with anyone and a private key that its owner keeps secret.
  • TLSTransport Layer Security: the standard protocol that encrypts data travelling between two systems, such as a browser and a website, and checks the server's identity.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: APIs, Networking and Security

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