[ale] Key management

[Robert Reese]

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
On 5/15/2008 at 7:15 AM JK wrote:

>Robert Reese wrote:
>> Hi Kevin,
>> 
>> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
>> On 5/14/2008 at 11:01 AM Kevin O'Neill Stoll wrote:
>> 
>>> Problem being, I don't want to have to distribute O's pub
>>> key manually to a dozen or 12 dozen sources.
>> 
>> Then what you are saying is that you won't ever send anything from O that is signed or encrypted.  O would only receive.
>
>Can't holders of O's public key decrypt data encrypted with O's
>private key?

No.  Public keys verify signatures of private keys as well as encrypt data to be decrypted by the private key.

That said, it was very late last night when I pulled a memory muscle.  I had it backward (which probably led you to the reverse in your query).

If Kevin needs to have encrypted data sent _to_ O, he has no choice but to distribute O's public key.  Further, he needs to have the senders public key in O's keyring to verify the signature of the encrypted data.

Sorry for the confusion. :c/

Cheers,
Robert~

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