Does Encryption Actually Engender Trust?

Abstract

In the modern Internet age, developers and administrators include encryption in their services as a matter of course. It is frequently described as the crucial enabling technology for many applications. Does encryption actually inspire trust from the users? This paper examines the link between trust and encryption by soliciting opinions from 79 users including highly knowledgeable professionals as well as novices. Contrary to intuition, the main finding here is that encryption alone does not necessarily improve the amount of trust placed in secured services.