PUBLIC KEY CRYPTOGRAPHY – The puzzle of the private and public keys

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Whenever we disclose any of our private information (or any type of info that might hamper our lives if it gets into the wrong hands) to an authority online , we always have second thoughts about how this whole communication network works and will it be able to keep our valuable information secure.

So to end this uncertainty to some extent, you’ll get to know how public key cryptography (Asymmetric cryptography) helps carrying out the exchange of our information over the internet securely in this article.

Whenever a lay man sees the word cryptography the things that comes first to his mind are complex algorithms, coding and deciphering etc. but here we will learn about the public key cryptography in a more simple way.

We can understand the working with an example where the data provided by the sender could be in the form of an email which is translated into an encryption using a public key which is publicly accessible, and decrypted through by the private key into the raw version of itself. Here the public key will only work with the private key associated with it and vice-versa.

So here we saw that whatever valuable information we passed over the email was not being hampered or accessed by any third party which does not have the private key.

Hence another query arises in our minds that how do we keep this private key secure and inaccessible to unwanted people, so now we’ll read about the methods to maintain the secrecy of the private key.

– The first thing to keep in mind before storing the private key is to consider it equivalent to your digital signature, as it is unique and could be generated just by ourselves.

– Steer clear of providing remote access of the key to any third party

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