Meaning – The term public key, refers to a key that is made available to everyone. Public keys are used to convert a message into an unreadable format. Decryption is carried out using a different, but matching, private key. Public and private keys are paired to enable secure communication.
A public key may be placed in an open-access directory for decryption of the digital signature of the sender, the public key of the message recipient encrypts the sender’s message.
Public PGP keys are housed in a public key server directory to allow public key sharing. PGP server directory keys may be updated but not removed.
Example of usage – “The public key can be generated by a software program, but more often, it is provided by a trusted, designated authority and made available to everyone through a publicly accessible repository or directory.”
