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I was interviewing for a full time position with the company I am a contractor with. One of the questions I got presented with was designing an IM client. I got asked the following question: "How would you encrypt the messages so that customer service could read them if they needed to?"
I have no experience with encryption, and did not pretend to. After the interview I went to try and find information on this so that I would have a better understanding. When I attempted to look up message encryption(how-to, example, coding, java, etc) it would only bring show articles about which app you should install to encrypt your messages, why you should use message encryption apps, etc. I couldn't find how it's done or how to implement it.
I have a basic understanding of how encryption works, but how would I go about learning more(ideally without pouring through an encryption book). I would like to understand how I could answer the question I was presented with in case I ever get an opportunity like that again.
How would Customer service decrypt it? Wouldn't they need the private key? – Lencalot – 2016-03-16T22:03:13.003
Customer Service use their private key to decrypt. See the finished answer. – DavidPostill – 2016-03-16T22:05:46.283
I had the idea that the message would have issues being decrypted by the user. But the user would use the systems public key, the system could always decrypt then re-encrypt with receivers public key and send them the message. I appreciated the answer, it was exactly what I was looking for. – Lencalot – 2016-03-16T22:29:44.837
@Lencalot You still have it wrong they wouldnt use the systems public key, which is used to encrypt the message, you should read the answer again. How the system would work, you generate the public and private key, and after the private key is downloaded and discarded by the website the public key is archived. This way, you can send encrypted messages back and forth, because you provide the sites public key, not the sites private key – Ramhound – 2016-03-17T03:52:56.283