News Trends Tutorials Stats Hardware Reviews OS Roundup Hot Topics Forum Product Watch Glossary Web FTP Mail Application Proxy Real-Time Comm Collaboration Operating Systems Sitemap Contact Us Home Become a Marketplace Partner IT Developer Internet News Small Business Personal Technology Search internet.com Advertise Corporate Info Newsletters Tech Jobs E-mail Offers Be a Commerce Partner

Enter a keyword...   ...or choose a category. choose one... Communications Computer Industry Companies Computer Science Data Graphics Hardware Internet and Online Services Mobile Computing Multimedia Networks Operating Systems Programming Software Standards Types of Computers World Wide Web   symmetric-key cryptography Last modified: Thursday, January 17, 2002  An encryption system in which the sender and receiver of a message share a single, common key that is used to encrypt and decrypt the message. Contrast this with public-key cryptology, which utilizes two keys - a public key to encrypt messages and a private key to decrypt them. Symmetric-key systems are simpler and faster, but their main drawback is that the two parties must somehow exchange the key in a secure way. Public-key encryption avoids this problem because the public key can be distributed in a non-secure way, and the private key is never transmitted. Symmetric-key cryptography is sometimes called secret-key cryptography. The most popular symmetric-key system is the Data Encryption Standard (DES).   Related Categories Encryption Related Terms AES cryptography DES key public-key encryption Shop for: Books - Adam J. Eilbert - Understanding and Applying Cryptography and Data Security Products Release Date: April 07, 2009 Compare all matches: 3 Store Offers from $76-$147 Top Store Offers Amazon - 79.95 HotBookSale - 76.27 Amazon Marketplace - 147.43 more stores...