Digital Signature (Notes)
Digital Signature (Notes) explains various things in this blog such as what, Why, and How is a Digital Signature? etc.
- Digital Signature (DS): Many legal, financial and other documents of authenticity is determined by the presence or absence of authorized handwritten signature.
- This problem has been prepared in various ways to solve, but the DS using “definitely the best solution between them.
- It is nothing but an attachment to any piece of electronic information, which represents the content of the document and the identity of the originator of that document uniquely.
- It is an important part of electronic documentation and digital identity. In Blockchain to learn more about DS.
In this Blog, we will cover the following topics.
- What is Digital Signatures?
- Why Digital Signatures?
- What are the usages of Digital signature?
- How do digital signatures work?
- What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Digital Signature?
What is Digital Signatures?
Various Author Definition is available as follows:
Definition 1
A digital signature is a mathematical scheme for accepting the authenticity of digital messages or documents.
A valid DS gives a recipient reason to believe:
- Authentication: that message was created by a claim sender.
- Non-repudiation: that the sender cannot deny having sent the message.
- Integrity: that message was not altered in transit.
Definition 2
- Hash value of a message when encrypted with the private key of a person is his digital signature on that e-Document.
- DS of a person therefore varies from document to document thus ensuring authenticity of each word of that document.
- When the public key of the signer is known, anybody can verify the message and the digital signature.
Why Digital Signatures?
- Firstly we will Provide Authenticity, Integrity, and Non-repudiation to electronic documents.
- To use the Internet as the safe and secure medium for e-Commerce and e-Governance
- Eliminate the need to print, fax, scan, and ship documents. So both time and money saved.
- After that Send documents with signature and get a response in minutes, not days.
What is a usages of Digital signature?
It is for many types of documents and transactions, and for personal and commercial use.
- Sign contracts, invoices, and work orders
- In order to approve project estimates and change orders
- Sign school forms and permission slips
- In order to complete and sign leases and rental agreements
- To Sign NDAs and client agreements
- Sign bank documents and insurance forms
How do digital signatures work?
In this process, the use of DS usually involves two processes, one performed by the signer and the other by the receiver of the DS.
Generate the hash of the data
Sender feeds the Message to the hash function and generates the hash value. The value of this hash is unique to the Message.
Produce DS
Hash value and private key are then fed to the Encryption which produces the digital signature on a given hash.
Send to recipient
The sender then sends the message with the digital signature to the receiver.
The receiver verify the hash value
After that receiving the message and digital signature on it, the receiver feeds the sender’s public key and the signature decryption. It generates a hash value as output.
Regenerate hash value from the message and match with hash sent by the sender
The hash decrypted by using the sender’s public key. If this decrypted hash matches a second computed hash of the same data, it proves that the data hasn’t changed since it is valid.
What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Digital Signature?
Digital Signature Advantages and Disadvantages are following
Advantages of DS are following
- Authentication: Identification of the person that signs.
- Integrity of data: Every change detection will be.
- Non-repudiation: Because the author cannot be denied of his work (he created and sent).
- Imposter prevention: Elimination of the possibility of committing fraud by an imposter.
- Time-Stamp: By time-stamping your digital signatures, you will clearly know when the document was signed.
- Tracking: A digitally signed document can easily be tracked and located in a short amount of time.
Disadvantages of DS
- A disadvantage of the DS is that trust is built on the ownership of the sender when they make their public key accessible to the public(Mady, 2009).
- Another disadvantage of the DS is that the private key has to secure at all times(Mady, 2009).
- It is the time it takes to generate and obtain the authentication of the signature(Mady, 2009).
- Another disadvantage of the DS is that it does not entitle the sender to the security of the data being transferred among the sender and recipient(Mady, 2013).
- Expiry: In this era of fast technological advancements, many of these tech products have a short shelf life.
- Certificates: In order to effectively use digital signatures, both senders and recipients may have to buy digital certificates.
- Software: To work with digital certificates, senders and recipients have to buy verification software at a cost.