Key Exchange - The Key Exchange Problem

The Key Exchange Problem

The key exchange problem is how to exchange whatever keys or other information are needed so that no one else can obtain a copy. Traditionally, this required trusted couriers, diplomatic bags, or some other secure channel. With the advent of public key / private key cipher algorithms, the encrypting key (aka public key) could be made public, since (at least for high quality algorithms) no one without the decrypting key (aka, the private key) could decrypt the message.

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Famous quotes containing the words key, exchange and/or problem:

    Sunshine of late afternoon—
    On the glass tray

    a glass pitcher, the tumbler
    turned down, by which

    a key is lying—And the
    immaculate white bed
    William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)

    I should like not to exchange any of my life for money.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    What had really caused the women’s movement was the additional years of human life. At the turn of the century women’s life expectancy was forty-six; now it was nearly eighty. Our groping sense that we couldn’t live all those years in terms of motherhood alone was “the problem that had no name.” Realizing that it was not some freakish personal fault but our common problem as women had enabled us to take the first steps to change our lives.
    Betty Friedan (20th century)