Public Key Cryptography

Tags

cryptography

Refers to a standard for sharing secure correspondences between a sender and a recipient using asymmetric-key encryption.

Procedure

1. [see page 24, Distribute public keys]. Assume that every involved party can access the public key of a host because it's been publicly announced somehow. You can receive better security by adding your keys to a publicly available directory or getting a certified authority to give you a key.
2. Sign what you want to transmit with your private key.
3. Encrypt the signed message with the recipients public key.

The recipient can then retrieve and verify the original message is yours by:

1. Decrypting transmission with their private key.
2. Verify the signature of the decrpyted contents with senders public key.

Note: \(R\) in the diagram above is a random number, nonce.