However, when you make a purchase over the Internet the merchant can not verify the person using the credit card is the owner of the card. For example, the merchant would not process a transaction with the credit card, if they don t have an electronic signature available because the credit card companies must have a signature in order for the transaction to be valid. To access a safety deposit box, both the customer and the bank must use their keys to be authorized to look at the contents. This is essentially the same process as Internet transactions because both the merchants and customers must use public and private keys simultaneously to complete a transaction. Public and private keys are used as identification for conducting transactions.
Keys refer to passwords that make the transaction possible.
Public keys are used to receive the secured transaction from the customer. Public and private keys are called asymmetric because the length of the key indicates the degree of security. As the length of the key increases, the chances of hackers getting into confidential information decreases exponentially. This makes it possible to have an infinite number of keys for an increasing number of people wanting to make transactions over the Internet. These keys allow data to be encrypted as it is traveling over the network.