SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0-only
SPDX-FileCopyrightText: Copyright 2020 n2n contributors
SPDX-FileCopyrightText: Copyright Hamish Coleman

# Security Considerations

When payload encryption is enabled (provide a key using `community.key`), the
supernode will not be able to decrypt the traffic exchanged between two edge
nodes but it will know that edge A is talking with edge B.

There are multiple encryption options to choose from. Please have a look at
[Crypto description](../internals/Crypto.md) for a quick comparison chart to
help make a choice. n3n edge nodes use AES encryption by default. Other
ciphers can be chosen using the `community.cipher` option.

A built-in benchmark of the encryption methods is available with the
`n3n-edge test benchmark` tool.

The header which contains some metadata like the virtual MAC address of the
edge nodes, their IP address, their real hostname and the community name
optionally can be encrypted applying the `community.header_encryption=true`
option to the edges.


