Hello Ivan and everyone else,

What does encryption do exactly? Does it encrypt the headers of the files we download so nobody can see what the file is called?

Thank you

Lisa

It encrypts all messages between your torrent client and other party so nobody can tell what's in them (filenames, hashes, protocol information and other stuff).

It's main purpose is not to be secure (the actual encryption isn't that strong), but to make sure that ISP's cannot slow down bittorrent connections, by making sure that they cannot determine that the connection is a bittorrent connection.