public key cryptography

public key cryptography: The type of cryptography in which the encryption process is publicly available and unprotected, but in which a part of the decryption key is protected so that only a party with knowledge of both parts of the decryption process can decrypt the cipher text. Note: Commonly called non-secret encryption in professional cryptologic circles. FIREFLY is an application of public key cryptography. [NIS]

This HTML version of FS-1037C was last generated on Fri Aug 23 00:22:38 MDT 1996