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Public keys are not meant to be public. They can be public in that making them public doesn't compromise the corresponding private keys. And generally making t
by cryptonector 4y ago
Public keys are not meant to be public. They can be public in that making them public doesn't compromise the corresponding private keys. And generally making them public helps scale key management.
There are cryptographic protocols where public keys are kept private. For example TLS with client certificates (the client's certificate gets sent encrypted to the server). Ditto SSHv2 (the client need not reveal all its public keys, and it does get to authenticate the server before revealing its identity and public keys).
- enasterosophes 4y agoYou're right, but my intention was to tackle unfounded nervousness, not to draft a technical document explaining all the ins and outs of keypair cryptography.
- Reitet00 4y ago> For example TLS with client certificates (the client's certificate gets sent encrypted to the server). Hmm... I was under the impression that up until TLS 1.3 the client cert was sent in the clear during session negotiation...
- cryptonector 4y agoYes, you're right, in 1.3 it goes encrypted, while in <1.3 it goes in the clear.