Understanding encryption Keys

Posted by claws on Super User See other posts from Super User or by claws
Published on 2010-06-02T02:39:31Z Indexed on 2010/06/02 2:44 UTC
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Hello,

I'm really embarrassed to ask this question but its the fact that I don't know anything about encryption. I always avoided it. I don't understand the concept of encryption keys (public key, private key, RSA key, DSA key, PGP Key, SSH key & what not) .

I did encounter these in regular basis but as I said I always avoided them. Here are few instances where I encountered:

Creating Account:

A public RSA or DSA key will be needed for an account. Send the key along with your desired account name to [email protected]

I really don't know what are RSA/DSA or How to get their keys? Do I need to register some where for that?

Mailing:

I'm unable to recall exactly but I've seen some mails have some attachments like signature or the mail footer will have something called PGP signature etc.. I really don't get its concept.

GIT Version control:

I created account in assembla.com (for private GIT repo) and it asked me to enter "SSH keys" to my profile. Where am I gonna get these? Why do I need it? Isn't SSH related to remote login (like remote desktop or telnet)? How are these two SSHs related & differ?

I don't know in how many more situations I'm going to encounter these things.

I'm really confused and have no clue about where to start & how to proceed to learn these things. Kindly someone point me in correct direction.

Note: I've absolutely zero interested in encryption related topics. So, there is no way I'm going to read a graduate level book on this subject. I just want to clear my concepts without going into much depth.

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