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?
In: Technology
I recommend spending a few minutes researching public key infrastructure (PKI). There’s a lot to it but I understand PKI, specifically asymmetric cryptography, to allow prople to send messages to you encrypted with your public key that only you can decrypt with your private key. You can’t use the recipients public key to decrypt intercepted messages.
You do use the public key to verify the digital signature of a message to confirm its origin and that it’s not been tampered with (integrity).
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