Exchanging Public Keys Manually - Win32 Programmer's Reference

Custom Search

Exchanging Public Keys Manually

If a certification authority is not available, or if one or more of the users has not registered their public keys with it, then the users need to exchange their public keys in some other manner. This can also be done if the certification authority is not considered trustworthy by one or more of the users.

When transferring keys or messages from one user to another, one of the users is designated the sending user (or sender) and the other the destination user (or receiver).

The first step is for the sender to export his public key from the CSP into a public key blob, using the CryptExportKey function. Next, the key blob must be sent to the destination user in some secure manner. Although secrecy is not necessary, both users must be confident that the integrity of the key blob remains untarnished during the transfer. (The mechanics of how this is done are completely independent of the CryptoAPI.)

Public key blobs are not encrypted. Thus, it would not be difficult for the sending application to convert the key blob to a human-readable format, so that the sender could read the public key to the receiver over the phone. Furthermore, it would not be difficult for the receiving application to reconstruct the public key blob.

Once the receiver has received the key blob data from the sender, it imports the key blob into its own CSP. This is done using the CryptImportKey function.

Last news from Greatis Software

    Nostalgia .Net     .Net is powerful, but not all-powerful, so sometimes we need to use Win32 API for our .Net applications. It's simple enough with Platform Invoke if you have Win32 skill, but we do not always have time to dig the ancient documentation, declare the special types that are compatible with Win32, find the values of the Win32's constants and so on. Nostalgia .Net offers several simple-to-use classes, and components that will allow you to forget about the headache of Win32 and just use the power of Win32 in your application the same way as you use the native. Net classes. More »

Recommended software for developers

    Ultimate Pack     Component pack for Delphi and C++ Builder that contains runtime form designer, runtime object inspector, print suite and much more for the very special price. More »

    Form Designer .Net     Unique runtime form design solution that allows to edit any form in .Net WinForms application at runtime with full source codes for only 300 euro! More »

    Print Suite .Net     Print Suite .Net is a set of components for easy printing texts, images and grids from your WinForms applications. Full C# source codes are available More »

    Gradient Controls .Net     Gradient Controls .Net offers controls with gradient background feature. Labels, panels and so on... Full C# source codes are available More »

    Greatis iGrid     iGrid plots drawing grid right over your desktop, so you can use it everywhere, with any drawing application without any special plugins for different graphic editors. More »

All the contacts and projects

Dmitry Vasiliev (just.dmitry)

More Online Helps

Win32 Programmer's Reference
Win32 Multimedia Programmer's Reference
OLE Programmer's Reference
Microsoft Windows Pen API Programmer's Reference
Microsoft Windows Sockets 2 Reference
Microsoft Windows Telephony API (TAPI) Programmer's Reference
Unix Manual Pages

greatis just4fun network