Public key cryptosystems

  • Everyone has two keys, public (literally!) and secret
  • These keys are inverses of each other
             P S           S P
         {{M} }  = M = {{M} }
    
  • Knowing the public key doesn't help you guess the secret key
  • To send you a message, I simply encrypt it using your public key
  • Only you can decrypt it, because only you know the inverse -- your secret key
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