If the message is encrypted symmetrically...

Andrew Berg bahamut at digital-signal.net
Wed Jun 20 20:22:44 CEST 2007


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Joseph Oreste Bruni wrote:
> By definition of symmetric encryption, you must use the same key to
>  decrypt that was used to encrypt. I'm not sure what you're really
> asking.
>
> When you say "public key is used to generate symmetric key" you
> lost me. Symmetric keys are typically just random numbers pulled
> from /dev/random or similar.
The public key generates a key that symmetrically encrypts the
message, which can be deciphered by its corresponding private key.
What stops Bob from using Alice's public key to generate a symmetric
key that can decrypt her messages?

- --
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