Learning Applied

I bought a copy of this book last week and although I'm only a few pages in I've learned a lot already.
The only thing with learning is that unless one can apply that knowledge then it's a bit of a waste of time. The one thing that has stuck in my head is that Linux doesn't care about file extensions. At first (being an old Windoze user) I thought there wasn't much point in this, how does Linux know how to open certain files? I'm using Ubuntu and indeed it does use file extensions as a recognizable way of opening files.
But there is an advantage of using this facility in Linux. Here's a quick method that I've been playing with.

1. Open gedit and write a message.
2. Save the file as a .mp3. Gedit will happily do that.
3. Use AES Crypt to encrypt the .mp3 you just made.
4. Rename the .aes file by removing the .aes extension.
5. You now have an .mp3 file which is an encrypted text file.
6. Share your file.

While I wouldn't send my bank details by this method it is at least reasonably secure for sending simple messages. It's also reasonably quick and if you reverse the process it works to decrypt your message.
As I work my way through the book I'm hoping to find more useful nuggets that let me play with encryption processes.

That's all for now. Back to the book which I highly recommend.