synchronous key encryption

algorithm, cryptography Data encryption using two

interlocking keys where enything encoded using one key may be

decoded using the other key. This means if someone makes one

of the two keys publicly available (as in public-keyencryption) and keeps the other private, then anyone may send

them a message or data that only they can decode, giving

privacy, and furthermore, the sender may also encrypt that

same message additionally with their own private key, making

it impossible to read without decoding first with *their*

_public_ key by the receiver, this gives authenticity.

It is a very powerful system. One cannot determine one key

from the other, nor can they crack the encryption by computing

all combinations, because, depending on the size of the keys

(sometimes as large as 1024 bytes, though having grown from

smaller versions in popular implementations of the software

which does this), the amount of computing power required to

crack the code is unavailable, even supercomputers would take

more than a hundred years to crack it.

PGP is a publicly availble software implementation written

by Phil Zimmermann.

(1994-10-10)