| encryption
Encryption is the process of changing
data into a form that can be read only by the intended receiver. To
decipher the message, the receiver of the encrypted data must have the
proper decryption key. In traditional encryption schemes, the sender and
the receiver use the same key to encrypt and decrypt data. Public-key
encryption schemes use two keys: a public key, which anyone may use, and a
corresponding private key, which is possessed only by the person who
created it. With this method, anyone may send a message encrypted with the
owner's public key, but only the owner has the private key necessary to
decrypt it. PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) and DES (data encryption standard)
are two of the most popular public-key encryption schemes. |