Digital Signatures

Jain College Of Computer Applications

Karnataka University

Abstract— This document furnishes information related to ensures that the original content of the message or
Digital Signature and essentials following the subject for its basic
understanding. document that has been sent is unchanged.

Keywords— II. HISTORY

I. INTRODUCTIONFrom time immemorial signatures seem to be the
. Technology is evolving day by day. We live most accepted means of authentication and
in a digital world surrounded by a major component recognition. In the early era thumb impressions
“The Computer”. Our activities involve surfing, were used in regard to authenticity which further
blogging various sites, online banking etc , but have took an edge on to ink and pens still in massive use
we ever thought how safe is our information system but modern technology paved way to complete
with the promotion of hackers? For this very security prone electronic signatures in which further
purpose cryptography was introduced as the innovation led to digital signatures. Though the
practice and study of hiding information. invention of telegraph and Morse code in 1830s
Implementation of cryptography to secure data indicated the first signs of electronic
involves a process called encryption for communications and legally recognized electronic
transforming information using cipher , an signatures it was only when Martin Hellman and
algorithm specially designed for encryption and Whitfield Diffie introduced public key
decryption process. The encrypted information cryptography in 1976 that conjectured the
bears knowledge only to the concerned authority of establishment of the first practical method of
that information. Taking into account the distributing cryptographic keys over an unprotected
cryptographic encryption process and considering public network. Later on Ronald Rivest,
security to be major issue digital signatures were AdiShamir, and Leonard Adleman invented the
introduced to sustain signer authenticity, RSA(Rivest, Shamir, Adleman) algorithm that
accountability, data integrity and non-repudiation of follows certain mathematical steps for execution. A
electronic documents and forms. study on this algorithm depicts its efficiency over
security level based on the length of keys and its up
to date implementations. It is proved that the RSA
algorithm is suitable for signing as well as
encryption .The Lotus Notes, a client-server
DEFINITION
application developed by IBM was the first
A digital signature is a piece of data that software package to widely market digital
identifies the originator of a document. It utilizes signatures. Immediately after the RSA algorithm
asymmetric encryption, where one key (private key) the methods of constructing digital signatures like
is used to create the signature code and a different Lamport and Rabin signatures were developed.
but related key (public key) is used to verify it. It Then the invention progressed at a higher stage and
in 1988 such a scheme was developed that could
prevent forgery in an existential case too and it was H a sh
known as the GMR(Goldwasser, Micali, Rivest) H a s h R e s u lt
M e ss ag e F u n c tio n
signature algorithm. The rapid progress on digital
signatures made various organizations opt for it as F ro m S ig n e r
security was their biggest concern to safeguard their
D ig ita l V e rify
information system in this competitive arena. V a lid Y /N
S ig n a t u r e F u n c tio n

Working

P u b lic
A n y o n e C a n V e r ify
Digital signature creation uses a hash result K ey
derived from and unique to both the signed message s ig v e r . v s d

and a given private key. This hash value should be

unique and impossible to obtain via a different
message. This technique enables the protection of
digital information (represented as a bit-stream) V PHYSICAL SIGNATURE vs DIGITAL SIGNATURE
from undesirable modification. Let us assume you
were going to send the draft of a contract to your
• Physical signature is just a writing on paper
lawyer in another town. You want to give your where as a digital signature encompasses
lawyer the assurance that it was unchanged from crucial parameters of identification.
what you sent and that it is really from you. The • Physical signature can be copied whereas
procedure is as follows: it is impossible to copy a digital signature.
• Physical signature does not give privacy to
content whereas digital signature also
• You copy and paste the contract into an e- enables encryption as well as privacy.
mail note. • Physical signature cannot protect the
• Using special software, you obtain a content but digital signature provides high
message hash (mathematical summary) of security to the data.
the contract.
• You then use a private key that you have
previously obtained from a public-private
key authority to encrypt the hash. ADVANTAGES
• The encrypted hash becomes your digital
signature of the message. (Note that it will
be different each time you send a message.)

At the other end, your lawyer receives the message.

• To make sure it's intact and from you, CONCLUSION

your lawyer makes a hash of the
received message.
• Your lawyer then uses your public key
to decrypt the message hash or
summary. IMAGES
• If the hashes match, the received
message is valid.
Accuracy
·COCC Speed of text entry
· Lack of need for flat or large typing
surface
·A

References:
be changed by software allowing for
foreign or
· Alternative keyboard layouts.
Portability
· Accuracy
· Speed of text entry
· Lack of need for flat or large typing
surface
· Ability to minimize the risk for
repetitive strain injuries
· Flexibility
· Keyboard layoucan be changed by
software allowinfor foreign or
· Alternative keyboard layouts.