Private Key
## What is a Private Key
A Private Key is only one half of the package, there is also the [[Public Key]] To use this technology you need to have both parts. The Private Key is the part the you must keep secret and not reveal to anyone, the public key can be shared with the world, the more people that have you public key the better.
## How to use a Public and Private Key To give an example of how to use a key pair. Lets say that you want to send me a secret message on the hive blockchain and you want to make sure that only I can read it. - First you need to get hold of my public key - Then write you message - Encrypt the message with my public key - send the message The fact that you have used my public key to encode the message means that just like a lock and a key only my private key can decode the message. This private key is only held by me so only I can decode it. ## Why is this secure In this simple example of sending a message you can be assured that even if someone else gets access to the message, like email admins snooping on messages, they will not be able to make sense of it as it have been en-coded. Only the hold of the Private Key can decode the message. ## Other Uses There are many other examples for using this key pair technology. On Hive we use out private posting key to sign messages that we post to the blockchain. We use our private active key to sign financial transactions, and we have a private memo key to sign messages. ## Related Articles [[Public key]]
## How to use a Public and Private Key To give an example of how to use a key pair. Lets say that you want to send me a secret message on the hive blockchain and you want to make sure that only I can read it. - First you need to get hold of my public key - Then write you message - Encrypt the message with my public key - send the message The fact that you have used my public key to encode the message means that just like a lock and a key only my private key can decode the message. This private key is only held by me so only I can decode it. ## Why is this secure In this simple example of sending a message you can be assured that even if someone else gets access to the message, like email admins snooping on messages, they will not be able to make sense of it as it have been en-coded. Only the hold of the Private Key can decode the message. ## Other Uses There are many other examples for using this key pair technology. On Hive we use out private posting key to sign messages that we post to the blockchain. We use our private active key to sign financial transactions, and we have a private memo key to sign messages. ## Related Articles [[Public key]]