What are digital signatures?
Digital signatures (standard electronic signatures) take the concept of traditional paper-based signing and turn it into an electronic “fingerprint.” This “fingerprint,” or coded message, is unique to both the document and the signer and binds both of them together. The digital signature ensures the authenticity of the signer. Any changes made to the document after it is signed invalidate the signature, thereby protecting against signature forgery and information tampering. Digital signatures help organizations sustain signer authenticity, accountability, data integrity and non-repudiation of electronic documents and forms.
Digital signatures are electronic stamps that can be used to identify the sender or the signer of a digital document. Think of digital signatures as the digital equivalent of the signature placed on a contract or a check. Digital signatures use public and private key pairs to ensure the authenticity of an electronic document. The creator of the document will have the private portion of a digital signature scheme which is encoded onto the document when it is signed. Then the recipient of the document would receive the public key of the digital signature scheme. This would allow the recipient of the document to know that the document was authentic and really did come from the sender. Keeping with a paper document analogy, the purpose of a signature is to verify that the signer is the originator of the document. Sometimes documents require signatures in person to have a witness to the signature. The public key/private key pair allows electronic documents to be verified in much the same wa
Written signatures indicate an individual’s agreement to a document based on the assumption (sometimes verified by a notary public) that the signature is unique and authentic. Digital signatures do the same online, using various technologies that allow the receiver of the document to be certain of the identity of the person submitting the document. Digital signatures are based on applied mathematics and the use of cryptographic algorithms. To create a digital signature the signer uses two “keys.” These “keys” are extremely large numbers that have been uniquely assigned to the signer and are called the “private key” and the “public key.” The signer uses the private key to sign an electronic document, and another person can then use the public key to verify that the signature is authentic. This verification process also establishes that the document was not altered as it was transmitted over the Internet. How are digital signatures verified? An important element in this process is an int
Like the signature you use on written documents today, digital signatures are now being used to identify authors/co-signers of e-mail or electronic data. Digital signatures are created and verified using Digital Certificates. Today, the international and also Belgian legal community is preparing legislation that will make digital signatures as legally binding and universally accepted as the written ones. To sign information, to conduct a secured transaction, you will need your own unique Digital Certificate. Digital signatures can provide major important functions such as: authentication confidentiality, data integrity and non-repudiation.
