Skip to main content

You are not logged in. Your edit will be placed in a queue until it is peer reviewed.

We welcome edits that make the post easier to understand and more valuable for readers. Because community members review edits, please try to make the post substantially better than how you found it, for example, by fixing grammar or adding additional resources and hyperlinks.

2
  • 1
    You're right about the input but not the output. RSA does not encrypt each input byte to an output byte like RC4 or AES-CTR does; it takes a block of bytes (or bits) up to the "size" of the key (more exactly, the size of the modulus in the key, nowadays usually 2048 bits = 256 bytes although in past years smaller keys were used) less a margin that allows padding needed for security (usually 10 to 20 bytes), and encrypts that block to a result the same size as the key/modulus; decrypting removes the padding to give the variable-length input. Commented Sep 30, 2015 at 19:21
  • Thanks for explaining everything guys, I was confused by the term binary data, I'm still trying to understand public key cryptography properly. Commented Oct 1, 2015 at 0:47