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Symmetric vs Asymmetric Cryptography

Understanding the two fundamental approaches to encryption

🔑 Symmetric

👩
Alice
🔑
→ Same Key →
🔑
👨
Bob
Shared secret key
Keys 1 shared key
Speed Fast (1000x+)
Key Size 128-256 bits
Key Distribution Difficult

Examples:

  • AES (Advanced Encryption Standard)
  • ChaCha20
  • 3DES, Blowfish

🔓🔐 Asymmetric

👩
Alice
🔓
🔐
→ Public →
🔓
👨
Bob
Public + Private key pair
Keys 2 keys (public/private)
Speed Slow
Key Size 2048-4096 bits (RSA)
Key Distribution Easy (public)

Examples:

  • RSA
  • ECC (Elliptic Curve)
  • Diffie-Hellman

⚡ Hybrid Encryption (Best of Both)

Real-world systems combine both: Use asymmetric to exchange a symmetric key, then symmetric for data.

🔑
Generate random
session key
→
🔐
Encrypt key with
RSA public key
→
📨
Send encrypted
session key
→
⚡
Use AES with
session key

This is how TLS/HTTPS works!

Quick Demo: AES (Symmetric)

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