Can One Public Key be Used to Encrypt and Decrypt Data during the SSL Handshake?

Question

When a server sends a Certificate message to a client, the public key in the server\'s certificate will be used to verify server’s identity(decryption with the public key).<

Answer 1

I had the same restlessness, since its difficult to ask without falling in technical holes. Quick, easy answer: regardless of the method details, yes, you could reverse engineer and decrypt from one key (is just math at the end) but because of the complexity of the operation, using a long value (you may use ie. a 4096-bit value) would make the reverse operation timeless, so you had to use either a machine so big that still doesnt exists or wait indefinitely, making it inviable... until someone comes up with a quick method to do it.

may want to take a look: http://www.usna.edu/CS/si110arch/si110AY12F/lec/l29/lec.html