There has been more and more talk on the PGP encryption system, but I do not fully understand what the purpose is. Currently I know that it uses 2 different keys and it can be used for e-mails. Can anyone explain it in depth to me? Thanks
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Argh. PGP keys work like this: You want to send me something and I want to be the only one who can read it so I give you my public key. My public key is like an open combination lock ready to be closed/locked. Although you don't know the combination to open it, you can use it to lock up anything. You lock up a trunk with my combination lock (public key) and send it to me. You can't open it and neither can anyone else. Only I know the combination (my private key), and only I can unlock it. This way, it is safe to hand out your public key (unlocked combo lock) to everyone, and anyone can use it to send you something, but only you have the correct combination (private key) to unlock the contents.
This analogy was discovered by explaining asymmetric encryption to my father. All this stuff really isn't that impossible to understand, but technical people have a very hard time explaining complex ideas and we get wrapped up in our own academic terminology. Honestly, turning something complex into something simple is very difficult.
