RE: cloudy understanding of asymmetric cryptography

2009-03-26 Thread Jim Hendrick
Yup - you got it. Symmetric encryption is *way* faster (that's a technical term :-) than asymmetric. Hence the slower version is used to exchange a random key that is then used to handle the encryption/decryption of the data. Algorithms are implementation dependent but it is common to use 3DES for

Re: cloudy understanding of asymmetric cryptography

2009-03-26 Thread Andreas Heinlein
Felipe Alvarez schrieb: > On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 8:17 PM, Sven Radde wrote: > >> Hi! >> >> Felipe Alvarez schrieb: >> >>> Someone today shook my understanding of asymmetric ciphers. >>> >>> _Bob performs symmetric encryption on message with_ >>> _key "K" (generated randomly). He then encr

Re: cloudy understanding of asymmetric cryptography

2009-03-26 Thread Felipe Alvarez
On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 8:17 PM, Sven Radde wrote: > Hi! > > Felipe Alvarez schrieb: >> Someone today shook my understanding of asymmetric ciphers. >> >> _Bob performs symmetric encryption on message with_ >> _key "K" (generated randomly). He then encrypts "K" _ >> _with Alice's public key, and se

Re: cloudy understanding of asymmetric cryptography

2009-03-26 Thread Sven Radde
Hi! Felipe Alvarez schrieb: > Someone today shook my understanding of asymmetric ciphers. > > _Bob performs symmetric encryption on message with_ > _key "K" (generated randomly). He then encrypts "K" _ > _with Alice's public key, and sends both the symetrically _ > _encrypted message and asymmetri

Re: cloudy understanding of asymmetric cryptography

2009-03-26 Thread David SMITH
On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 07:51:15PM +1000, Felipe Alvarez wrote: > I was unable to find adequate explanations online. http://www.gnupg.org/gph/en/manual/x209.html -- David Smith| Tel: +44 (0)1454 462380Home: +44 (0)1454 616963 STMicroelectronics | Fax: +44 (0)1454 462305 Mobile: +44

RE: cloudy understanding of asymmetric cryptography

2009-03-26 Thread Sascha Kiefer
Yes, that is right. Asymmetric encryption is a slow process. Encrypting the whole message would take forever. So, symmetric keys a quite small, that's why the described technique is used. Cheers, Sascha -Original Message- From: gnupg-users-boun...@gnupg.org [mailto:gnupg-users-boun...@gnu

Re: cloudy understanding of asymmetric cryptography

2009-03-26 Thread David SMITH
On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 07:51:15PM +1000, Felipe Alvarez wrote: > _Bob performs symmetric encryption on message with_ > _key "K" (generated randomly). He then encrypts "K" _ > _with Alice's public key, and sends both the symetrically _ > _encrypted message and asymmetrically encrypted key to Alice_