Instead of transferring the money immediately, it would be best to wait until you see Mike so that you can give him the cash in person. For all you know, it could be an impostor who is trying to steal from you. There is no way to know whether it really is Mike or the correct account number. “But you don’t sound like Mike,” you say.

What about if instead of doing the transaction face-to-face, you got a call from someone saying that they are Mike, and that you should send $100 to account number 12345678. The signature on the receipt would give it integrity and make it non-repudiable. If you were really anal, you could even check his ID and make him sign a handwritten receipt for you. You have known him for years and know what he looks like, so it would be easy to verify his identity and thus authenticate that you are giving the money to the right person. The best way to do it would be to just give a $100 bill to Mike. You’re a good person, so you are happy to pay him back when you get the money. Let’s say that you owe your friend Mike $100. Let’s take a step back and think about how we do things in a face-to-face encounter. You may be wondering why we need these properties in the first place. This property takes away plausible deniability, or the old “Sorry, my friend was using my account” excuse.Īs long as the individual’s private key has not been compromised, digital signatures can provide all three of these properties to data. If data or a message is non-repudiable, it means that its author cannot dispute that they were the true creator of the document. If a message has been altered or tampered with, it no-longer retains its integrity. The integrity of data or a message refers to whether it has arrived in the same state as when it was sent. These are authentication, integrity and non-repudiation.Īuthentication is the process of verifying that the individual who sends a message is really who they say they are, and not an impostor. What are digital signatures?Īs stated above, digital signatures provide us with three very important properties. In this article, we will discuss what digital signatures are, where they are used, as well as the technical details of two of the most popular algorithms, RSA and DSA.

These properties have led to the adoption of digital signatures in a wide range of applications, including many of our security protocols, secure email, and in digital rights management.

They allow people to check the authenticity and integrity of data, as well as preventing the signatory from being able to repudiate (deny) their involvement. Digital signatures are kind of like electronic versions of your handwritten signatures.

Detect it easy crypto signature