Public Key Cryptosystems, Essay Example

Public key cryptosystems provide a secure way for two parties to converse, using cryptographic algorithms or ciphers,“mathematical function[s] used in the encryption and decryption processes” as well as a key—“some secret information… to encrypt the text”  (Obaidat & Boudriga, 2007, p. 25). Keys are paired, with a public key that can be disseminated and a private key to ensure security (p. 76). Another e-system using this technology is the public key infrastructure (PKI) system, which encompasses “the end-entity, public key certificate, certification authority, and repository” (p. 77). End-entities may be any users of a digital service. With public key certificates (PKCs), PKIs ensure the authenticity of information concerning entities in a system (p. 77).

Data repository systems such as Lotus Notes are another kind of e-system: Notes allows users to develop applications for knowledge management, creating a “knowledge architecture”  (Davenport & Prusak, 2000, p. 132). Chrysler used Notes “to create an ‘Engineering Book of Knowledge,’” which contains information about “the design and engineering process… [for] particular car components” (p. 132). Case-based reasoning (CBR) systems extract knowledge “from a series of narratives, or cases, about the problem domain” (p. 127). CBR systems “can reflect the fluid thinking” of the human mind, in contrast with expert systems “which require that rules are well structured with no overlaps” (p. 129). CBR systems have become quite successful  commercially “in resolving customer service problems: over five hundred firms use CBR for this purpose” (p. 129). E-commerce sites such as Amazon.com and eBay.com convert information “from an in-house computer system to web page format” and then post it online (Bragg, 2011, p. 27). Customer interaction takes place by means of queries sent “through the firewall to an application server,” and  additional databases provide “customer credit, inventory, and payment systems,” relaying the information back to the customer (p. 27). 5).