The key to crypto? It's in the key - By William Jackson - Nov
28, 2012 The Federal Information Processing Standards specify
cryptographic algorithms approved for government use, but any
cryptographic scheme is only as secure as the keys used to
encrypt and decrypt information. The National Institute of
Standards and Technology has issued guidance on generating keys
to be used with approved algorithms. Special Publication
800-133, Recommendation for Cryptographic Key Generation, spells
out methods for creating both symmetric keys, in which the same
secret key is used to both encrypt and decrypt data, and
asymmetric or public-key schemes, in which separate public and
private keys are used for each function. Most key generation
requires the use of a random bit generator to produce strings of
statistically unrelated bits. Keys can either be created
directly by the generator or the random bits can be used as seed
material to create the key using an approved formula. Symmetric
keys also can be generated from passwo