Security is what plays a vital role in blockchain and this is one of the most significant reasons why blockchain has become so popular. But with security, most of us get confused between public and private keys. Most of us think that it’s the same thing but actually it’s not.
Private keys and public keys are two of the most commonly used terms in blockchain and cryptography development. Cryptography is a system of assisting communication among the sender and the receiver that imply two major mechanisms: encryption and decryption utilizing a unique key. Here is where public and private keys come into play.
What is a Public key?
It is a cryptographic system that is based on a pair of keys: a private key that is kept private and a public key that is spread to the network. Utilizing enhanced cryptographic methods, this system ensures the reliability and integrity of a message. Let’s see an example of how public key cryptography is used: Suppose Veronica desires to send a message to Tom through the internet. By creating a category of public and private keys, Veronica can utilize public key cryptography. She may then send Tom her public key. Now, anytime she wants to interact with Tom, she can utilize her private key to include a digital signature in the message. This could manifest that she is the creator of the message. Tom can validate this with the message he obtained and Vironica’s public key.
What is a Private Key?
A private key, also known as a secret key, is a significant element used in cryptography ahead with the appropriate algorithm to encrypt and decrypt information. These keys are designed to be shared solely by the user who creates them and the authorized user to decrypt the data. It is equivalent to a unique password, consisting of a series of numbers and letters. A private key is usually created at random from a sequence of bits that is user-generated that cannot be simply traced or presumed.Because these are considerably longer, the duration and intricacy of private keys play a essential role in deciding how an outsider or prospective attacker can have accessibility to the data while trying to establish a pair of keys that will function unless the right pair is determined and utilized. These play a significant part in mechanisms like asymmetric and symmetric cryptography.
| Basis | Private Key | Public Key |
| Speed | It has a faster mechanism. | It has a comparatively slow down mechanism |
| Distinctiveness | It is utilized for both decryption and encryption of the message | Utilized as two diverse keys, one for encryption and the next one for decryption |
| Confidentiality | Enhance data privacy; not accessible by everyone besides the sender and the receiver | Relatively less privacy; open for the public to utilize |
| Main function | Perfect for scalability, trustworthiness and system speed. | Perfect for load testing check |
| Algorithm mechanism | Shared among the sender and the receiver | Not utilized as a single key between the users. |
| Cryptography category | Utilized for symmetric cryptography | Utilized for asymmetric cryptography |
Conclusion
Cryptography has developed rapidly as a field in recent years, becoming an additionally secure ecosystem than the blockchain platform by itself. Now that we’ve understood the importance of private and public keys in cryptography, we can observe how the 2 terms vary.
