How secure is Signal encryption?
Insane security with AES-256 bit encryption.
👇👇👇
A 256-bit encrypted number refers to a number represented by 256 binary digits (bits), where each bit can be either a 0 or a 1. To understand how large this number is, let’s break it down.
In Binary Terms A 256-bit number means there are 256 positions, each capable of being 0 or 1.
The total number of possible values is calculated as:
22562^{256}2^{256}, because each bit doubles the number of possibilities.
In Decimal Terms To get a sense of its size in decimal form: 22562^{256}2^{256} is approximately equal to:
115,792,089,237,316,195,423,570,985,008,687,907,853,269,984,665,640,564,039,457,584,007,913,129,639,936115,792,089,237,316,195,423,570,985,008,687,907,853,269,984,665,640,564,039,457,584,007,913,129,639,936115,792,089,237,316,195,423,570,985,008,687,907,853,269,984,665,640,564,039,457,584,007,913,129,639,936
This is a 77-digit number! To put it in perspective:
It’s vastly larger than a googol (1010010^{100}10^{100}
), which is a 1 followed by 100 zeros.
It’s even larger than estimates of the number of atoms in the observable universe, which is roughly 108010^{80}10^{80}.
In Practical Terms
In encryption (like AES-256), a 256-bit key means there are 22562^{256}2^{256} possible keys.
If you tried to brute-force guess the key at a rate of 1 trillion guesses per second (101210^{12}10^{12}
), it would take: 2256/1012≈10652^{256} / 10^{12} \approx 10^{65}2^{256} / 10^{12} \approx 10^{65}
seconds.
That’s about 3×10573 \times 10^{57}3 \times 10^{57}
years—far longer than the age of the universe (13.8 billion years, or 1.38×10101.38 \times 10^{10}1.38 \times 10^{10} years).
Visualizing It
Writing 22562^{256}2^{256} out fully in decimal form (as shown above) already takes up a line of text. If you tried to write all numbers from 0 to 2256−12^{256} - 12^{256} - 1, you’d need more storage than exists in the world—think of it as a number so large it’s practically incomprehensible.
So, a 256-bit encrypted number isn’t just "big"—it’s astronomically huge, which is why 256-bit encryption is considered extremely secure.