Public Key Encryption and Signatures
Public key encryption involves the use of a key pair. That pair consists of a secure, private key, and a public key that can be made available to anyone. This type of encryption is called asymmetric because you don't use the same key to encrypt the data that you use to decrypt the data. Data that has been encrypted with the public key can be decrypted only by the private key, and data signed (encrypted) with the private key can be verified only by using the public key.
In a typical scenario, the public key is made available to anyone, and is used to encrypt data being sent to the owner of the private key. The other main difference between secret key (symmetric) and public key (asymmetric) encryption is that ...
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