RE: Encryption question

["Preston, Tony" <Tony.Preston () acs-inc com>]

I think I understand the answer to my question...  First is that there is
more to having a secure email conversation than using a public/private key
encryption.  The second is that the key pair has a mathematical relationship
that I cannot replace the private key since it would violate the
relationship and not work.

Thanks to everyone answering my question.

Tony Preston
Systems Engineer, AS&T Inc.
Division of L3 Corporation
(609) 485-0205 x 181


-----Original Message-----
From: Theo Chaojareon [mailto:theo () gwu edu] 
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 12:42 PM
To: Preston, Tony
Cc: security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: Re: Encryption question

Hey Tony,

The reason is because ONLY Alice's private key can decrypt something 
encrypted by Alice's public key, and vice versa, only her public key can 
decrypt something encrypted by her private key.  For this reason you 
can't make an arbitrary pair and say they are a key set.



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