I recently saw my friend's Instagram stories where she was showing off that she just started dating her new boyfriend. There were about ten stories, containing everything from photos of them holding hands, screenshots of romantic chats, to tagging the location of their expensive dinner. Two weeks later, her stories were just black screens with sad songs. They broke up.

As someone who cares about data security (and mental security), I could only sigh. This friend of mine just made a fatal mistake in the science of cryptography: she broadcasted sensitive data using plain text on a public network.

In the world of cybersecurity, we know what is called an Asymmetric encryption system. Basically you have two keys: a Public Key (can be distributed to anyone) and a Private Key (only held by you). If someone wants to send secret data to you, they will lock (encrypt) that data using your Public Key. But to open it (decrypt), it can only be done using the Private Key in your hands. This keeps your data safe from hackers eavesdropping in the middle.

Now let us translate this into social life. Your feelings of happiness, future plans, and personal problems are highly sensitive data. If you post everything on social media (public network) unfiltered, you are giving access to thousands of people to parse, analyze, and judge your life. You are attacking yourself with a Man-in-the-Middle attack.

Why is this dangerous? Because on the internet, not everyone who views your stories has good intentions. There are people who are secretly envious (malicious nodes), people who like to spread gossip (packet sniffers), and people waiting for you to fall so they can feel better about their own lives.

When you show off excessive happiness, you invite the evil eye aka negative energy from these people. And when you finally have a problem, you have to deal with not only the problem itself, but also the burden of social expectations from people who already know.

So how do you apply encryption in real life?

First, separate which data needs a public key and which needs a private one. Professional achievements like passing your thesis defense or getting a new job, you can encrypt those with a public key. Let people know and congratulate you. But romance matters, family problems, or your salary, those must be strictly encrypted with a private key. Keep them locked tight, only allowed to be decrypted by people in your tier-one circle (close friends who are proven secure).

Second, use a hash function technique to tell people without revealing the details. If someone asks how your relationship is going, you just reply "safe, just pray for us." That is a valid hash output to show your status is fine, without revealing the raw data that you just fought last night because they replied late.

Third, realize that oversharing is a form of insecurity. You are seeking validation from the public network because you are not confident in your own private key. People who are genuinely happy usually do not have the time to prove their happiness to random people on the internet. They are busy enjoying the moment on their local server.

So from now on, stop sending your sensitive data in plain text. Guard the perimeter of your mental firewall. Let your happiness be a mystery to outsiders, and an absolute comfort to yourself.

Khay