PGP - I'm missing something here...

[gkedrovs]

I read the newby help file. I did some reading on sites. But, I'm still having trouble getting my p-brain to wrap around the encryption concept of PGP (and like programs).

If I create a key for my ecrypted e-mail, and put that key on a keyserver so my "secret friends" can read my "secret mail," what's to stop my "secret enemies" from getting that same key from the same keyserver and reading the same encrypted mail? What am I missing here?

I know... it's gonna be one of those "DUH!" things for many of you guys out there. If so, blow it off and don't flame my stupidity, okay? It's Friday. Let's be happy...

-gk

[gkedrovs]

Forget it, guys. Slap me. Kick me. Send me home. I answered my own question with a little more RTFM...

(Is it too early to grab a Heini...?)

"PGP, however, is based on a public key cryptography system, which means that it works quite differently. Instead of having one key that needs to be kept a secret, everyone has two different keys, only one of which is a secret. One key is called your private key and one key is called your public key. Your private key is secret, known only to you. Your public key you show to the world, you give it away to everyone. Then, when you want to send an encrypted message to someone you first encrypt it in their public key (which they've let you and anyone else see). Then you give them the encrypted message and they decrypt it using their own secret key, the key that only they know about. So for example if Matthew wants to send Stan an encrypted message Matthew first encrypts his message with Stan's public key and sends that encrypted message to Stan. Stan then uses his own private key to decrypt the message and can read what Matthew sent him."

-gk