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Opening Digital EnvelopesLocate this document in the navigation structure

Use

Open digital envelopes if you are the intended recipient or viewer of a digital document that has been secured by a digital envelope.

Prerequisites

  • You have a digital envelope.

  • You have a private key.

Process

As a business user, you indicate that you want to open a digital envelope and the system does the rest.

Note

This step may also include a part of a business workflow where the system requests the opening of a digital envelope before proceeding. You must give the system explicit access to your private key, for example, by providing a PIN or passphrase that allows the system to access the smart card or file where your secret key is stored.

The figure below illustrates what happens when you open a digital envelope.

Figure 1: Opening a Digital Envelope

  1. The recipient applies his or her private key to the encrypted message key.

    The result is the secret key that was originally used to encrypt the digital document.

  2. The secret key that was revealed in the previous step is used to decrypt the digital document.

Result

The intended recipient (the owner of the corresponding private key) can view the contents of the digital document.