Why use encryption for emails if you have to share the public key?

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Why would you use something like PGP if you have to send your encryption key unencrypted to the party you are sending to? And if you leave this key out on something like Twitter for example, couldn’t law enforcement or a third party if they gained access to the other persons email still read the contents of the encrypted email by using this key? Doesn’t this defeate the purpose of using encryption?

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33 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Because anything encrypted with a public key can only be decrypted with the private key.

So if you send me a message encrypted with my public key, only I can read it. When I respond to you, I use your public key to encrypt it and only you can decrypt it with your private key.

So on what scenario can anyone else ever read my mail if I’m the only one with the private key?

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