RSA
(cryptography, company)(The initials of the authors)
1. RSA Data Security, Inc.
2. Their cryptography systems, especially RSA encryption.
The RSA algorithm was first described in the paper:
[R. Rivest, A. Shamir, L. Adleman, "A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-key Cryptosystems". CACM 21,2; 1978]
1. RSA Data Security, Inc.
2. Their cryptography systems, especially RSA encryption.
The RSA algorithm was first described in the paper:
[R. Rivest, A. Shamir, L. Adleman, "A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-key Cryptosystems". CACM 21,2; 1978]
This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)
RSA
(1) (Rural Service Area) See MSA.(2) (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman) A highly secure cryptography method by RSA Security, Inc., Bedford, MA (www.rsa.com), a division of EMC Corporation since 2006. RSA uses a two-part key. The private key is kept by the owner; the public key is made available to everyone.
Data are encrypted by using the recipient's public key, which can only be decrypted by the recipient's private key. RSA is very computation intensive, thus it is often used to create a digital envelope that holds an RSA-encrypted DES key and DES-encrypted data. The RSA method encrypts the secret DES key only to transmit it over the network, but the actual message is encrypted and decrypted using the much faster DES algorithm.
RSA is also used for authentication by creating a digital signature. In this case, the sender's private key is used for encryption, and the sender's public key is used for decryption. See digital signature.
The RSA algorithm is also implemented in hardware. As RSA chips get faster, RSA encoding and decoding add less overhead to the operation. See cryptography and digital certificate.
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| Secret Key vs. Public Key |
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| The secret method uses the same key to encrypt and decrypt. The problem is transmitting the key to someone so they can use it. The public key method uses two keys. One kept secret and never transmitted, and the other made public. Sometimes the public key method is used to send the secret key of the private method, and then the message is sent using the private key method. |
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