thank you for all your answers. I guess i was really confused on the public
and private key situation, but that cleared it up. thanks again.


"Vanguard" wrote in message
...
"Rome" wrote in message
...
I recently purchased a Email Certificate from Verisign for Encryption and
Digitally Signing My email and it works fine with everybody who has
outlook. Why is it that i cant send an encrypted email with someone thats
using yahoo? i was messing with sending myself an encrypted email, and got
it to work an hour later. why is it that in order for me to send an
encrypted message to someone i have to have their certificated stored in
my adress book?


--- REPLY SEPARATOR ---
(only needed because the OP use quoted-printable format in their post)

Because you did not train yourself by researching on how certificates
work. You encrypt a messages using SOMEONE ELSE's public key. The only
person that can decrypt that message is the one that has the matching
private key. You digitally sign a message so you can give your PUBLIC key
to someone else, who can then use that public key to encrypt a message
they send to you whereupon you use your private key to decrypt their
message. Similarly, for you to send someone else an encrypted message
means you have to get their public key used to encrypt the message.

You want to send them a digitally signed message:
Use the public key from your certificate.

You want to send them an encrypted message:
Use THEIR *public* key in THEIR certificate.
They decrypt using THEIR *private* key.

They want to send you a digitally signed message:
They use their public key from their certificate.

They want to send you an encrypte message:
They need to use YOUR public key from YOUR certificate.
You decrypt using YOUR *private* key.

The certicate owner retains safety of their certificate by NOT divulging
their private key. The certificate owner gets a public and private key.
Everyone else only gets the public key. Since no one but the certificate
owner has the private key, no one else can [easily] decrypt a message
encrypted with their public key (i.e., everyone else only gets half of the
key).

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