RSA

RSA stands for the last names of its inventors: Rivest, Shamir, Adleman. It is one of the most popular Asymmetric Algorithms, which until very recently was patented in the US. It relies on the factoring of very large numbers.

How it works:

Choose two large prime numbers p and q (eg. both have a size of 512 bits)

Compute n = p * q

Choose a small public exponent e>1

Compute d so that: de = 1 mod (p-1)(q-1)

n and e are the public key and d is the private key.