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Hybrid keys
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Key escrow
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Digital signatures
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Diffusion
EXPLANATION
Public-key cryptography, or
asymmetric cryptography, is a cryptographic system that uses pairs of
keys:
public keys which may be disseminated widely, and
private keys which are known only to the owner. The generation of such keys depends on
cryptographic algorithms based on
mathematical problems to produce
one-way functions.
Effective security only requires keeping the private key private; the
public key can be openly distributed without compromising security.
[1]
In such a system, any person can encrypt a message using the receiver's
public key, but that encrypted message can only be decrypted with the receiver's
private key.
Robust
authentication is also possible. A sender can combine a message with a private key to create a short
digital signature
on the message. Anyone with the sender's corresponding public key can
combine the same message and the supposed digital signature associated
with it to verify whether the signature was valid, i.e. made by the
owner of the corresponding private key.
[2][3]
Public key algorithms are fundamental security ingredients in modern
cryptosystems, applications and protocols assuring the confidentiality, authenticity and
non-repudiability of electronic communications and data storage. They underpin various Internet standards, such as
Transport Layer Security (TLS),
S/MIME,
PGP, and
GPG. Some public key algorithms provide
key distribution and secrecy (e.g.,
Diffie–Hellman key exchange), some provide
digital signatures (e.g.,
Digital Signature Algorithm), and some provide both (e.g.,
RSA).