private Key/Public Key:

The encryption using a private key/public key pair ensures that the data can be encrypted by one key but can only be decrypted by the other key pair. This is sometime hard to understand, but believe me it works. The keys are similar in nature and can be used alternatively: what one key emcrypts, the other key pair can decrypt. The key pair is based on prime numbers and their length in terms of bits ensures the difficulty of being able to decrypt the message without the key pairs. The trick in a key pair is to keep one key secret (the private key) and to distribute the other key (the public key) to everybody. Anybody can send you an encrypted message, that only you will be able to decrypt. You are the only one to have the other key pair, right? In the opposite , you can certify that a message is only coming from you, because you have encrypted it with you private key, and only the associated public key will decrypt it correctly. Beware, in this case the message is not secured you have only signed it. Everybody has the public key, remember!
One of the problem left is to know the public key of your correspondent. Usually you will ask him to send you a non confidential signed message that will contains his publick key as well as a certificate.