Alok wrote:
David C. Partridge wrote:
Once generated, it is encrypted using the public key of the recipient and
included with the message.
but then if i do something like
DES(key=hispubkey(data=somerandom))
i can always decrypt if i know hispubkey.
NO! Look, Alok, it's painfully obvious that you don't really
understand public key encryption -- that something encrypted
by the public key CANNOT be decrypted by that public key.
It can only be decrypted by the matching but different PRIVATE
key. Also reflexive -- something encrypted with the private
key CANNOT be decrypted with the private key -- it can only be
decrypted with the private key.
This is qualitatively different from traditional private key
techniques, where the same key is used for encryption and
decryption. You will not understand anything that is going on
until you internalize this fact.
There have been a lot of newbie questions on this list recently.
There is an FAQ which might answer some of the questions that
are being asked over and over and over.
Or do we need a newbie list???
(melting down due to getting over 200 spams a day...)
--
Charles B (Ben) Cranston
mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.wam.umd.edu/~zben
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