"Public-key cryptography, or asymmetric cryptography, is the field of cryptographic systems that use pairs of related keys."
A type of cryptography that uses a public key for encryption and a private key for decryption.
Public Key Encryption: This is a form of encryption where a public key is available to everyone and can be used to encrypt messages. The recipient then uses their private key to decrypt the message.
Private Key Encryption: This is the opposite of public key encryption. In this form of encryption, only the sender and recipient have access to the private key, which is used to encrypt and decrypt messages.
Key Pair: A key pair consists of a public key and a private key. When using asymmetric cryptography, these keys are used for encryption and decryption.
Digital Signature: A digital signature is used to authenticate and ensure that data has not been tampered with. It involves the use of a private key to encrypt a hash of the data being sent, which can be verified using the sender’s public key.
Certificate Authority: A certificate authority is an entity that issues digital certificates to confirm the authenticity of a user, device or service. This is important for ensuring secure connections.
Cryptographic Hash: A cryptographic hash is a mathematical function that converts data of any size into a fixed-size output (often referred to as a “message digest”). This output can be used to ensure data integrity.
Public Key Infrastructure (PKI): A public key infrastructure is a set of policies, procedures, and technologies used to manage public-key encryption.
RSA Encryption: RSA is a form of public key encryption named after its inventors, Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman. It is widely used in secure messaging and online transactions.
Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC): ECC is a form of public key encryption that is based on the mathematics of elliptic curves. It is known for its speed and efficiency.
Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange: The Diffie-Hellman key exchange allows two parties to securely exchange keys over an insecure channel. It is used in many encryption protocols, including SSL/TLS.
RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman): RSA is a widely used and popular public-key encryption algorithm that is based on the difficulty of factoring large integers. It provides confidentiality and integrity of data.
Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC): ECC uses the arithmetic of elliptic curves instead of prime numbers to create and verify digital signatures. Its key advantage is that it uses smaller key sizes to achieve the same level of security as other public-key algorithms.
Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA): DSA is a federal government standard for digital signatures that provides a means for verifying the authenticity of messages and documents. It is widely used for authenticating digital identities.
Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange: Diffie-Hellman is a method of securely exchanging cryptographic keys over a public channel. It allows two parties to establish a shared secret key that can be used for subsequent cryptographic operations.
ElGamal: ElGamal is a key-exchange algorithm that is similar to Diffie-Hellman, but it also provides digital signature capabilities. It is widely used for secure email communication.
KEM (Key Encapsulation Mechanism): KEM is a cryptographic technique that involves generating a public key and a symmetric key, and encapsulating the symmetric key within the public key. This approach allows for secure key exchange and data encryption.
McEliece Cryptosystem: McEliece is a public-key encryption algorithm that is based on the difficulty of solving large sparse linear equations. It is known for its strong security, but its key sizes are typically larger than other public-key algorithms.
NTRUEncrypt: NTRUEncrypt is a public-key encryption algorithm that is based on the difficulty of solving certain hard lattice problems. It is known for its small key sizes and high speed, making it ideal for resource-constrained environments.
LWE (Learning With Errors): LWE is a mathematical problem that is used in several lattice-based cryptographic systems. It involves solving a system of linear equations with errors, and is considered to be a hard problem for classical computers to solve.
SIDH (Supersingular Isogeny Diffie-Hellman): SIDH is a post-quantum public-key encryption algorithm that is based on elliptic curve isogenies. It is being actively studied as a potential replacement for currently insecure cryptographic systems that will be vulnerable to quantum computing attacks.
"Each key pair consists of a public key and a corresponding private key."
"Key pairs are generated with cryptographic algorithms based on mathematical problems termed one-way functions."
"Security of public-key cryptography depends on keeping the private key secret."
"The public key can be openly distributed without compromising security."
"In a public-key encryption system, anyone with a public key can encrypt a message, yielding a ciphertext."
"Only those who know the corresponding private key can decrypt the ciphertext to obtain the original message."
"A journalist can publish the public key of an encryption key pair on a web site so that sources can send secret messages to the news organization in ciphertext."
"However, public-key encryption does not conceal metadata like what computer a source used to send a message, when they sent it, or how long it is."
"Public-key encryption on its own also does not tell the recipient anything about who sent a message—it just conceals the content of a message in a ciphertext."
"In a digital signature system, a sender can use a private key together with a message to create a signature."
"Anyone with the corresponding public key can verify whether the signature matches the message."
"a forger who does not know the private key cannot find any message/signature pair that will pass verification with the public key."
"A software publisher can create a signature key pair and include the public key in software installed on computers."
"Any computer receiving an update can confirm it is genuine by verifying the signature using the public key."
"They underpin numerous Internet standards, such as Transport Layer Security (TLS), SSH, S/MIME and PGP."
"including applications and protocols which offer assurance of the confidentiality, authenticity, and non-repudiability of electronic communications and data storage."
"Compared to symmetric encryption, asymmetric encryption is rather slower than good symmetric encryption, too slow for many purposes."
"Today's cryptosystems (such as TLS, Secure Shell) use both symmetric encryption and asymmetric encryption."
"often by using asymmetric encryption to securely exchange a secret key which is then used for symmetric encryption." By providing these quotes, you can easily refer back to the paragraph and approach each study question with the necessary information.