On Sun, 5 Aug 2001, Russell Hires wrote:
> Yeah, I figured that out as I was encrypting/signing the email.
> > Encrypting to me would require you have MY public key.
> Or my public key? I would think that if I sent you my public key you'd be
> able to decrypt it? This part is confusing....Okay, so I click on my little
> padlock, and I can choose a public key. So if I choose your public key to
> encrypt, then your private key would be able to decrypt. So no one but me
> will be able to decrypt the encrypted message I sent.
>
The way public key cryptography works is that there are two keys.. a
Public key and a Private key. if A wants to send a message to B. A will
encrypt the message using B's public key. This means that only B will be
able to decrypt using B's private key. When signing a message A will
usually take the message digest of the message, such as MD5 or SHA-1, and
then encrypt that with A's private key. This means that anyone decrypting
it with A's public key will know that only A could have signed it because
only A has A's private key.
Jason
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