this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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Explain Like I'm Five

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How is the Recipient the Only One Able to Decrypt End to End Encryption? (sopuli.xyz)
submitted 1 year ago by Karlos_Cantana@sopuli.xyz to c/explainlikeimfive@lemmy.world
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I understand that in end to end encryption the message is encrypted and only the recipient has the key to Decrypt it. How is the key transmitted, and how can the key not get intercepted with the message?

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[–] moody@lemmings.world 7 points 1 year ago

Imagine a lock that requires 2 keys to work. One, the public key, can only lock it. The other, the private key, can only unlock it.

It's safe to share the public key since anything it locks can only be opened with the private key. So every interaction you have that needs to be kept hidden, you send out a copy of your public key, and only your private key allows you to read the message.

Credentials are irrelevant. If you need to communicate with someone else, you send your key, they send theirs back. Anything you lock with their public key, only their private key will access.