[plug] [semi-OT] Public/private keys?

[Andrew Furey]

> A -->(process)-->B    but B -->(reverse process) 
> !>A  (you cannot ge A from > B)
> 
> If you can accept that as fact for now, this is how
> it works ........

[snip]

Hmm. Yes, I understand that side of it (and to answer
Craig's question, I was thinking of digital signing
when I said "vice versa").

I also assumed that there was no way to reverse it, or
else PK crypto would be basically useless. I was just
curious as to precisely _how_ it works... although
using factorisation seems to make sense, as Craig
suggested.

It's probably some complex mathematical function
thingy, and my yr12 calculus is a bit rusty, so I'll
assume that smarter people than me have it all worked
out.

Actually my original question wasn't so much reversing
the encrypted _document_ to get the plaintext one, it
was more about reversing the public _key_ to get the
private one. After all, if anyone gets your private
key, you're in trouble...

Andrew

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