| digital signature n. A digital file that is attached to an e-mail message or other electronic document and is used to verify the document's origin and contents by means of associated encryption and decryption algorithms. |
digital signature cryptography
Extra data appended to a message which identifies and authenticates the sender and message data using public-key encryption.
The sender uses a one-way hash function to generate a hash-code of about 32 bits from the message data. He then encrypts the hash-code with his private key. The receiver recomputes the hash-code from the data and decrypts the received hash with the sender's public key. If the two hash-codes are equal, the receiver can be sure that data has not been corrupted and that it came from the given sender.
(1995-02-07)