[rakoo]

Because the paragraph on key generation and management would be 3 times as long as the entire article in its current form ?

Asymmetric encryption solves the problem of transmitting the password safely ("solve" is a rather optimistic word, maybe "delegates" is more appropriate); if you can safely transfer passwords from point to point, then using symmetric encryption is far easier.

[throwawayish]

Asymmetric cryptography transforms key distribution problems into key management problems.

Which is just a different problem, not necessarily an easier one, like you say.

[rakoo]

> Asymmetric cryptography transforms key distribution problems into key management problems.

That's a very nice way to put it, I'm going to reuse that !

[ausjke]

more importantly, they're more cpu intensive and slow to deal with large files

[throwawayish]

Asymmetric encryption adds constant overhead, independent of message size.

Unless you're doing it wrong.

[ausjke]

while not an expert I disagree, encrypt a 1GB file must be different from 1MB file, no matter it is sym or asym encryption. normally Asym is for keys while symmetric encryption is for the real content.