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The keys, in practice, represent a shared secret between two or more parties that can be used to maintain a private information link. [2] The requirement that both parties have access to the secret key is one of the main drawbacks of symmetric -key encryption, in comparison to public-key encryption (also known as asymmetric-key encryption).
For example, a replacement for WEP, Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), uses three levels of keys: master key, working key and RC4 key. The master WPA key is shared with each client and access point and is used in a protocol called Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) to create new working keys frequently enough to thwart known attack methods. The ...
In cryptography, a shared secret is a piece of data, known only to the parties involved, in a secure communication. This usually refers to the key of a symmetric cryptosystem . The shared secret can be a PIN code , a password , a passphrase , a big number, or an array of randomly chosen bytes.
[1] [2] [3] This shared secret may be directly used as a key, or to derive another key. The key, or the derived key, can then be used to encrypt subsequent communications using a symmetric-key cipher. It is a variant of the Diffie–Hellman protocol using elliptic-curve cryptography.
Example of a Key Derivation Function chain as used in the Signal Protocol.The output of one KDF function is the input to the next KDF function in the chain. In cryptography, a key derivation function (KDF) is a cryptographic algorithm that derives one or more secret keys from a secret value such as a master key, a password, or a passphrase using a pseudorandom function (which typically uses a ...
The shared secret can be used, for instance, as the key for a symmetric cipher, which will be, in essentially all cases, much faster. In an asymmetric key encryption scheme, anyone can encrypt messages using a public key, but only the holder of the paired private key can decrypt such a message.
Stream ciphers, in contrast to the 'block' type, create an arbitrarily long stream of key material, which is combined with the plaintext bit-by-bit or character-by-character, somewhat like the one-time pad. In a stream cipher, the output stream is created based on a hidden internal state that changes as the cipher operates.
Shamir's secret sharing (SSS) is an efficient secret sharing algorithm for distributing private information (the "secret") among a group. The secret cannot be revealed unless a quorum of the group acts together to pool their knowledge. To achieve this, the secret is mathematically divided into parts (the "shares") from which the secret can be ...