What are public and private keys and how are they used?
Basically, there are two kinds of cryptography in use. Secret key (symmetric), and public/private key (asymmetric). With secret key, the same key is used to encrypt information and decrypt information. Hence the operation is symmetric. With public/private key, the two keys are of different values. If you know the value of one you can’t calculate the value of the other. Encryption is done using one of them, and decryption can then only be done using the other. Hence the operation is asymmetric. With secret key systems you don’t know who sent the message or if it is for a specific recipient, because anyone with the secret key could create or read the message. With public/private systems it’s very different. You can give your public key to everyone. Then, if they want to send something to you they encrypt it with your public key and they know that only you can read it. By the same terms, if you encrypt something using your private key, then anyone who has your public key can check to see
There are basically two kinds of cryptography in use. Secret key (symmetric), and public/private key (asymmetric). With secret key, the same key is used to encrypt information and decrypt information. Hence the operation is symmetric. With public/private key, the two keys are of different values. If you know the value of one you can’t calculate the value of the other. Encryption is done using one of them, and decryption can then only be done using the other. Hence the operation is asymmetric. With secret key systems you don’t know who sent the message or if it is for a specific recipient, because anyone with the secret key could create or read the message. With public/private systems it’s very different. You can give your public key to everyone. Then, if they want to send something to you they encrypt it with your public key and they know that only you can read it. By the same terms, if you encrypt something using your private key, then anyone who has your public key can check to see i
