3 ms·
But it does make sense as an analogy? In this case the contents of the safe correspond to the plaintext, the key that opens the safe is the private key, and hav
by zodiac 9y ago
But it does make sense as an analogy? In this case the contents of the safe correspond to the plaintext, the key that opens the safe is the private key, and having the safe without the key is like having the ciphertext without the private key
- cesarb 9y agoIt doesn't because a safe is just a wrapper for its contents, which are within the safe still in their original form, while with cryptography the contents no longer exist in their original form. A safe would be a good analogy for instance for a tamper-proof USB stick which required a password to make its contents visible to the operating system, but which stored its data unencrypted. A better analogy for cryptography is "a journal written in code". This better captures the property of encrypted data: the contents of the journal corresponds to the plaintext, the rules to encode the writings corresponds to the cipher plus the private key, and having the journal without the rules is like having the ciphertext without the private key. Like with cryptography but unlike with a safe, to get to the contents you have to know or guess the rules; you can't drill the door like you can with a safe.