Thursday, 10 March 2011

Public Key Cryptography

Cryptography is the science of encrypting and decrypting data. Encryption being the technique used to convert source information into an unreadable format.

Encryption

Encryption is accomplished through algorithms that physically and mathematically transform the message being sent.

Ciphers

There are many ciphers and these are basically the different variations of algorithms and ways of encrypting and decrypting the information.

Keys

These are the pieces of information that know how to calculate the result of the algorithm. Keys can be symmetric or asymmetric. Symmetric is when the key uses the same encryption and decryption between sender and receiver while asymmetric using different encryption and decryption keys.

Data encrypted with the public key can only be decrypted with the private key and vice versa.

Public Key Infrastructure

Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is a set of hardware, software, people, policies, and procedures needed to create, manage, distribute, use, store, and revoke digital certificates

They offer two models for generating and administering public keys, these being centralized and decentralized management.

Centralized key-management

Kept by certificate authority (CA)

Decentralized key-management

Kept by individual

3 comments:

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