THE WHATIS.COM WORD-OF-THE-DAY July 3, 2002 asymmetric cryptography ______________ TODAY'S SPONSOR: The .tv Corporation
Save 30% on Web addresses! Not only will you get a great deal on your Web addresses, but you'll also get superior customer service, innovative products and services and a place that is easy to register and manage your Web addresses. Great names are still available. Register the names you want before someone else does! Check it out now: http://WhatIs.com/r/0,,4278,00.htm?the.tvcorporation ______________ TODAY'S WORD: asymmetric cryptography See our definition with hyperlinks at http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci836964,00.html Asymmetric cryptography is cryptography in which a pair of keys is used to encrypt and decrypt a message so that it arrives securely. Initially, a network user requests a public and private key pair. A user who wants to send an encrypted message can get the intended recipient's public key from a public administrator. When the recipient gets the message, they decrypt it with their private key, which no one else should have access to. This process is known as a public key infrastructure. Witfield Diffie & Martin Hellman, then researchers at Stanford University, first proposed asymmetric encryption in their 1977 paper, New Directions In Cryptography. An asymmetric algorithm, as outlined in the Diffie-Hellman paper, is a trap door one-way function. A one-way function is easy to perform in one direction, but difficult or impossible to reverse. A trap door one-way function, is one that is easy to reverse if you have information about the trap door, but difficult or impossible to reverse if you lack that information. In symmetric cryptography, the same key is used for both encryption and decryption. This approach is simpler but less secure since the key must be communicated to and known at both sender and receiver locations. RELATED TERMS: cryptography http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci214431,00.html key http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci213695,00.html public key http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci212845,00.html private key http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci212830,00.html public key infrastructure http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci214299,00.html ______________________ SELECTED LINKS: SearchSecurity offers more information in their "Tales from the Crypto." http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid14_gci797427,00.html The University of Texas maintains a "Cryptography Defined/Brief History" page. http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Norman/BUS.FOR/course.mat/SSim/history.html ______________________ WHATIS DISCUSSION FORUM | Challenge #7: Token ring or Ethernet Challenges are another learning tool where you (the reader) try to solve various real-life IT problems. Sometimes there's one right answer, but more often than not (just as in real life) there are several ways to approach the problem -- and that's why reading how other people would troubleshoot the Challenge is a fun way to learn. CHALLENGE #7: Kennedy High School had five computer labs that were on a token ring network but operated independently. Tim, the technology teacher, was given the ok to connect the labs to each other. Should he keep the labs token ring or make the switch to Ethernet? You tell us. >>Try the challenge http://whatis.discussions.techtarget.com/WebX?[EMAIL PROTECTED]^1@.1dcfae0e/49!viewtype=threadDate&skip=&expand= ______________________ QUIZ #28 | Ethernet How much do you know about the most popular network technology in the world? 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