Key generation is the process of generating keys for cryptography. A key is used to encrypt and decrypt whatever data is being encrypted/decrypted. Cryptography has had a long and colourful history. ...

Generally with modern advanced cryptographic systems there are two keys. An encryption key and a decryption key. The encryption key can also be a public key and the decryption key can be the private key. This means that you can give someone else the public key and they can give you encrypted data that only you can decrypt with your private key. Most of the time these transactions go on behind the scenes when you log on to secure servers: logging on to your bank or using SSH for example. PKC, see PKC (disambiguation) Public-key cryptography is a form of modern cryptography which allows users to communicate securely without previously agreeing on a shared secret key. ... PKC, see PKC (disambiguation) Public-key cryptography is a form of modern cryptography which allows users to communicate securely without previously agreeing on a shared secret key. ... In computing, Secure shell, or SSH, is both a computer program and an associated network protocol designed for logging into and executing commands on a remote computer. ...

So one might imagine if these keys are simple or predictable then the process is pointless so key generation needs to be difficult to predict. The better keys are usually randomly generated using a Random Number Generator (RNG) or Pseudo Random Number Generator (PRNG), the latter being a computer algorithm that produces data which appears random under analysis. Of the PRNGs those which use system entropy to seed data generally produce better results. The other factor is key length, the more data in the key the harder it is to analyse the data and discover the key. A random number generator is a computational or physical device designed to generate a sequence of numbers that does not have any easily discernable pattern, so that the sequence can be treated as being random. ... A pseudorandom number generator (PRNG) is an algorithm that generates a sequence of numbers, the elements of which are approximately independent of each other. ... In cryptography, the key size (alternatively key length) is a measure of the number of possible keys which can be used in a cipher. ...