Why is it that *everything* uses some sort of public-key encryption algorithm for storing sensitive data? It's stupid!
OK, it's brilliantly useful for sending data across the internet and so on but for storing one's own sensitive data it is entirely pointless as far as I can see.
For example if I want to store a file with some sensitive data in it and only only want to be able to decrypt it myself then surely anything *but* a public key encryption algorithm makes sense. Essentially a public key algorithm means that there is always a brute force way of getting at the data, it may take more computing power/time than is available but it is in principle possible. Other ways of encrypting can be made essentially uncrackable if you want.
Are there any encryption experts here who can persuade me that I'm being silly?