Editing Public-key cryptography (section)

== Applications ==
The most obvious application of a public key encryption system is for encrypting communication to provide [[confidentiality]] – a message that a sender encrypts using the recipient's public key, which can be decrypted only by the recipient's paired private key.

Another application in public key cryptography is the [[digital signature]]. Digital signature schemes can be used for sender [[authentication]].

[[Non-repudiation]] systems use digital signatures to ensure that one party cannot successfully dispute its authorship of a document or communication.

Further applications built on this foundation include: [[digital cash]], [[password-authenticated key agreement]], [[Trusted timestamping|time-stamping services]] and non-repudiation protocols.