你从电脑上发送的信息，无论是电子邮件、即时消息还是网页请求，都要经过几十个互联网路由器。是什么阻止他们嗅到你的流量？

今天的问答环节是由SuperUser提供的，SuperUser是Stack Exchange的一个分支，是一个由社区驱动的问答网站分组。

问题

超级用户阅读器淘气的。编码器想知道：

Packets travel through internetworks, and take many routes through internet routers. On each route that forwards traffic to another until reaching the ultimate destination, what stops them from viewing the packets they receive/forward?

现在，我们并不是说他的用户名和他对人们嗅探他的数据包的好奇之间有关联，但这绝对是我们迄今为止最喜欢的超级用户用户名/问题组合。

答案

超级用户Kwaio提供了一些见解：

Short answer : you can’t prevent them from sniffing your traffic, but you can make it meaningless for them by using encryption.

Either use encrypted protocols (HTTPS, SSH, SMTP/TLS, POP/TLS, etc.) or use encrypted tunnels to encapsulate your unencrypted protocols.

For example, if you use HTTPS instead of HTTP, the content of the webpages you fetch will not be readable from those routers.

But remember that they can still save the encrypted packets and try to decrypt them. Decryption is never about “can or can’t”, it’s about “How much time does it take”. So use ciphers and key lengths suitable for the degree of privacy you need, and the “expiration time” of the data you want to “hide”. (meaning if you don’t care if someone gets it a week after the tran**ission, use a strong protocol. If it’s an hour, you can lower the key length)

如果这个问答对激起了您对保护通信的好奇心，我们建议您做一点介绍性阅读：VPN与SSH隧道：哪个更安全？以及为什么大多数Web服务不使用端到端加密。

有什么要补充的解释吗？在评论中发出声音。想从其他精通技术的Stack Exchange用户那里了解更多答案吗？在这里查看完整的讨论主题。