Ask Science
Ask a science question, get a science answer.
Community Rules
Rule 1: Be respectful and inclusive.
Treat others with respect, and maintain a positive atmosphere.
Rule 2: No harassment, hate speech, bigotry, or trolling.
Avoid any form of harassment, hate speech, bigotry, or offensive behavior.
Rule 3: Engage in constructive discussions.
Contribute to meaningful and constructive discussions that enhance scientific understanding.
Rule 4: No AI-generated answers.
Strictly prohibit the use of AI-generated answers. Providing answers generated by AI systems is not allowed and may result in a ban.
Rule 5: Follow guidelines and moderators' instructions.
Adhere to community guidelines and comply with instructions given by moderators.
Rule 6: Use appropriate language and tone.
Communicate using suitable language and maintain a professional and respectful tone.
Rule 7: Report violations.
Report any violations of the community rules to the moderators for appropriate action.
Rule 8: Foster a continuous learning environment.
Encourage a continuous learning environment where members can share knowledge and engage in scientific discussions.
Rule 9: Source required for answers.
Provide credible sources for answers. Failure to include a source may result in the removal of the answer to ensure information reliability.
By adhering to these rules, we create a welcoming and informative environment where science-related questions receive accurate and credible answers. Thank you for your cooperation in making the Ask Science community a valuable resource for scientific knowledge.
We retain the discretion to modify the rules as we deem necessary.
view the rest of the comments
Thanks for mediating!
What I'm getting from this dicussion is that, when signing, the operations are not encryption and decryption, but ... hashing and hash-veryfing?
To help you with the terminology, the names for the two operations are "signing" and "verifying". That's it.
What can you do with...
"Signing" is not at all the same as "encrypting" with the keys swapped. It is a separate specific sequence of mathematical operations you perform to combine two numbers (the private key and the message) to produce a third - the signature. Signing is not called "hashing". A hash may be involved as part of the signature process, but it is not strictly necessary. It makes the "message" number smaller, but the algorithm can sign the full message without hashing it first, will just require computation for longer time. "Hash-verifying" isn't a thing in this context, you made that name up, just use "verify".
@dohpaz42 is mad because you messed up your terminology originally, and thought you were trying to say that you "encrypt" a message with the private key, which is totally backwards and wrong. He didn't know that in your mind you thought you were talking about "signing" the message. Because honestly no one could have known that.
Thanks! re-corrected again.
👍