Asymmetric cryptography

In asymmetric cryptography, the algorithms are public but each individual has a pair of keys: one is secret allowing them to perform operations that they alone are supposed to be able to do (signature or decryption), while their public key is sent to allow their correspondents to perform the reciprocal operations (verification of the signature or encryption of the message). The two keys have "asymmetric" roles, hence the terminology.

One well known example is the RSA algorithm.