Was successful in creating Key pair on my Windows 8 machine then placing the public key on my lin...

[G+_Rud Dog]

Was successful in creating Key pair on my Windows 8 machine then placing the public key on my linux client. From there was able to ssh log into the linux client. 

What I found interesting, only because new to this, if you enter a paraphrase when creating the key pair you must enter it each time you run ssh login. Thought that was odd as it gives you 2 steps forward and 1 step backwards. Totally ok with this as I am hearing the security is much better then simple log in with username and password.

Now would like to know what other uses my key pair can be applied to is there ways of using this for lets say logging into you email account or how can this be applied to sending messages as have seen some snippets indicating this can be done. Just haven't found out how.

Anything covering the use and application of key pairs would be appreciated and don't' forget I need layman's approach, please.

[G+_Ben Reese]

Awesome!

It's probably best to leave the key pair only for that purpose, but asymmetric crypto is used for a lot of stuff. SSL (like HTTPS), FTPS (I believe), GPG/PGP message encryption, etc...

[G+_Rud Dog]

Ben Reese Before I dive in can you generally tell me if the asymmetric key pairs are created like the, guessing they are called the, symmetric key pair?

[G+_Jeff Brand]

Asymmetric (aka public/private key crypto) is so named because you encrypt with one and decrypt the other.

 

Symmetric crypto uses the same key to encrypt and decrypt.

 

While I don't know much about symmetric crypto, I don't think there's much involved. Just choose some high-entropy noise to be the key and don't let bad guys get it.

 

The 2 parts of asymmetric keys are related to each other in non-trivial ways and therefore require special tools/algorithms to create them.

[G+_Ben Reese]

Yes, exactly. I'm still learning all the implementations, but security is hard...

 

With asymmetric encryption you give the public key to everyone so they can send you data, but only your private key can decrypt that. The private key is generated first, then it is used to create a public key. An example is SHA-256 which is usually used for SSL. I'm not sure what SSH uses, but wouldn't be surprised if it's SHA as well.

 

Symmetric key crypto uses the same key to encrypt as decrypt. It's great if only trusted will be encrypting and decrypting. Great for file encryption, password vaults, databases, WiFi access... AES probably the most popular. ?

[G+_Rud Dog]

As always Ben thanks for taking some time to help me out.

[G+_Ben Reese]

Hopefully I was helpful and didn't lead you astray lol. I practice the "fake it 'til you make it" philosophy, so I'm far from an expert on the subject. Always enjoy playing know it all though ?

[G+_Rud Dog]

Ben Reese Thanks for the response and keep up the great work really informative and always helpful.