Foo wants to send a confidential message to Yeh Lih over an insecure network. Which cryptographic technique should Foo use?

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BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

When evaluating how Foo should send a confidential message over an insecure network, it helps to think about what each technique actually provides.
Option a: Digital signatures. These are primarily about authenticity and integrity, proving who sent the message and that it hasn’t been altered. They do not conceal the content of the message itself, so they’re not suitable for keeping the message confidential on an insecure network.
Option b: Symmetric encryption. This does provide confidentiality, but it requires that Foo and Yeh Lih share a secret key in advance. Over an insecure network, distributing and safeguarding that shared key is a problem, since anyone intercepting the key could decrypt future messages. Without a secure key exchange, symmetric encryption alone isn’t ideal for sending confidential data securely.
Option c: Public-key cryptography. This uses a pair of keys: a public key (which can be shared openly) to encrypt and a private key (which is kept secret) to decrypt. The public key can be used to send confidential messages over an insecure network without having a prior secure channel for key exchange, which addresses the main vulnerability of insecure networks.
Option d: Hashing. Hash functions produce a fixed digest representing data, useful for integrity checks, but they do not hide the actual content of the message. They are not reversible and cannot be used to send confidential information securely.

Introduction to Security and Forensic Technologies (CT046-3-1-ISFT-25-RESIT)

Foo wants to send a confidential message to Yeh Lih over an insecure network. Which cryptographic technique should Foo use?

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