to Here is an example showing how asymmetric encryption works: I Herb wants send a message to he obtains Allison's public key from any of several well-known public places. Then, he encrypts his message to Allison using her public key. On the message is encrypted, only Allison can read the message by decrypting it with her private Because the keys are unique, only one secret key can open the message encrypted with corresponding public key, and vice versa. Reversing the process, Allison can send a a private message to Herb using Herb's public key to encrypt the message. When he receives Allison's message, Herb uses his private key to decrypt the message and then read it. If they are sending e-mail to one another, the message is secret only while in transit. Once a message is downloaded from the mail server and decoded, i is stored in plain text on the recipient's machine for all to view.