Definition:
A digital signature or e-signature for short (not to be confused with a digital certificate) is an electronic signature that can be utilized to authenticate the identity of the sender of a message or the signer of a document, and certainly to ensure that the original content of the message or document that has been sent is the same or unchanged. Digital signatures are easily transportable, cannot be imitated by someone else, and can be automatically time-stamped. Meaning to say, it’s very efficient in view of transacting legal matters. The ability to ensure that the original signed message arrived means that the sender cannot easily repudiate it later.
A digital signature can be used with any kind of message, transactions and the like, whether it is encrypted or not, simply so that the receiver can be sure of the sender’s identity and that the message arrived intact. A digital certificate contains the digital signature of the certificate-issuing authority so that anyone can verify that the certificate is real. This indeed is so commonly observed now in internet transactions.
How Digital Signatures works:
Assume you were going to send the draft of a contract to your lawyer in another town. You want to give your lawyer the assurance that it was unchanged from what you sent and that it is?
You copy-and-paste the contract (it’s a short one!) into an e-mail note.
Using special software, you obtain a message hash (mathematical summary) of the contract.
You then use a private key that you have previously obtained from a public-private key authority to encrypt the hash.
The encrypted hash becomes your digital signature of the message. (Note that it will be different each time you send a message.)
On the other end, your lawyer receives the message.
To make sure it’s intact and from you, your lawyer makes a hash of the received message.
Your lawyer then uses your public key to decrypt the message hash or summary.
If the hashes match, the received message is valid.
Advantages and Disadvantages of E-Signature:
Just as with any technology, there will be plus and minuses. This is the way it is with anything, whether it is technology related or not. The advantages of using digital signatures include:
Imposter prevention: By using digital signatures you are actually eliminating the possibility of committing fraud by an imposter signing the document. Since the digital signature cannot be altered, this makes forging the signature impossible.
Message integrity: By having a digital signature you are in fact showing and simply proving the document to be valid. You are assuring the recipient that the document is free from forgery or false information.
Legal requirements: Using a digital signature satisfies some type of legal requirement for the document in question. A digital signature takes care of any formal legal aspect of executing the document.
The Disadvantages of using digital signatures:
involve the primary avenue for any business: money. This is because the business may have to spend more money than usual to work with digital signatures including buying certificates from certification authorities and getting the verification software.
As a conclusion, you must try in using digital or e signature with your internet transactions so that you will experience more convenience in terms of doing various business and money matters. This way you will not worry and go with the hassles and problems of the traditional transactions that use signatures.
