Public key encryption, also known as asymmetric encryption, uses two separate keys instead of one shared one: a public key and a private key. Public key encryption is an important technology for Internet security. By cloudflare.com.
Public key encryption, or public key cryptography, is a method of encrypting data with two different keys and making one of the keys, the public key, available for anyone to use. The other key is known as the private key. Data encrypted with the public key can only be decrypted with the private key, and data encrypted with the private key can only be decrypted with the public key. Public key encryption is also known as asymmetric encryption. It is widely used, especially for TLS/SSL, which makes HTTPS possible.
Public key encryption is extremely useful for establishing secure communications over the Internet (via HTTPS). A website’s SSL/TLS certificate, which is shared publicly, contains the public key, and the private key is installed on the origin server – it’s “owned” by the website.
Source: @cloudflare https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ssl/how-does-public-key-encryption-work/ Instead of one key, two keys go with this lock: Key No. 1 can only turn to the left; Key No. 2 can only turn to the right.
Public key cryptography can seem complex for the uninitiated; fortunately a writer named Panayotis Vryonis came up with an analogy that works on example of a trunk with a lock that two people, Bob and Alice, use to ship documents back and forth. To learn moore, read this interesting article in full. Great read!
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