Security for Microsoft® Visual Basic® .NET

Public Key Encryption

Public key encryption (also called asymmetric encryption) has an important difference from private key encryption. Public key encryption uses two different keys: one key for encryption and another key for decryption. Why don’t they simply call this two-key encryption and call private key encryption one-key encryption? While it is well known that security experts like to invent jargon to justify their high consultancy fees, there is also a logical reason for this naming, which lies in the way the two types of encryption are used.

While private key encryption assumes that both the encrypting and decrypting parties already know the private key, public key encryption provides a method to securely issue a key to someone and have ...