synchronous key encryption

synchronous key encryption

(algorithm, cryptography)Data encryption using twointerlocking keys where enything encoded using one key may bedecoded using the other key. This means if someone makes oneof the two keys publicly available (as in public-key encryption) and keeps the other private, then anyone may sendthem a message or data that only they can decode, givingprivacy, and furthermore, the sender may also encrypt thatsame message additionally with their own private key, makingit 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 keyfrom the other, nor can they crack the encryption by computingall combinations, because, depending on the size of the keys(sometimes as large as 1024 bytes, though having grown fromsmaller versions in popular implementations of the softwarewhich does this), the amount of computing power required tocrack the code is unavailable, even supercomputers would takemore than a hundred years to crack it.

PGP is a publicly availble software implementation writtenby Phil Zimmermann.