what is public key

What is Public Key?

In cryptography, a public key is a cryptographic key that can be used by anyone who wants to send a message securely to a particular recipient. It allows for the encryption of data by anyone, but only the recipient who possesses the private key can decrypt it.

How does it work?

Public key cryptography works by having each recipient generate a pair of keys—one public and one private. The public key is shared with anyone who wants to send a message and the private key is kept secret. When someone wants to send a message, they encrypt it using the recipient's public key. The only way to decrypt the message is with the corresponding private key, which only the recipient possesses.

Example:

# Generating Public Key
import rsa

(pubkey, privkey) = rsa.newkeys(512)

# Encrypting data using Public Key
message = b'Hello World!'
crypto = rsa.encrypt(message, pubkey)

# Decrypting data using Private Key
decrypted = rsa.decrypt(crypto, privkey)

print(decrypted)  # Output: b'Hello World!'

There are different algorithms used for generating public keys such as RSA, DSA, and ECC. It is important to keep the private key secure and not share it with anyone, as anyone who possesses the private key can decrypt messages encrypted with the corresponding public key.