Craft public key so that private key equals given string (my password)?

Christopher Beck beckus at beckus.eu
Fri Jan 2 15:52:52 CET 2015


On Friday 02 January 2015 15:13:53 Ben Staude wrote:
> [...]
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > you can use the asymmetric variant: Generate a encryption key pair, store
> > the private key on your save place and the public key on your computer.
> > Then you can encrypt files without any password and decrypt them using
> > your private key.
> > 
> > Dies this describe your purpose, except the fact you don't want an extra
> > private key? But think of the meaning of symmetric encryption: This meas,
> > both keys are the same and there is no difference between the private and
> > public key. So AFAIK you can't get around using an asymmetric key pair.
> 
> I'm ok with asymmetric encryption as this will AFAIK be the only way to
> get rid of entering the password for every encryption. But as I
> mentioned I don't want to depend on a private key stored somewhere, but
> I'd like to use my password as the private key. I would need a keypair
> where the public key is some I-don't-care-ascii-bulk, but the private
> key is exactly my password.
> 
> Ben
> 
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Since the keys (depending on the algorithm - I am not an expert on that) are 
AFAIK calculated from random primes the reverse task, e.g. finding a public key 
to a given private key, sounds like a bit of reverse engineering. And I think 
(and if the reverse task has the same complexity I really hope it ;-)) it 
won't be possible.

Another thought: You could generate a Keypair with a keysize small enough to 
remember als a password but then I think the key size is that small it won't 
be secure anymore.

But sorry, I am not an expert on that...

-- 
Christopher Beck

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