About DIGITAL SIGNATURE

DIGITAL SIGNATURE
The most important development from the work on public-key cryptography is the digital
signature. Message authentication protects two parties who exchange messages from any
third party. However, it does not protect the two parties against each
other. A digital signature is analogous to the handwritten signature, and provides a set of
security capabilities that would be difficult to implement in any other way. It must have the
following properties: • It must verify the author and the date and time of the signature
• It must to authenticate the contents at the time of the signature • It must be verifiable by
third parties, to resolve disputes Thus, the digital signature function includes the
authentication function. A variety of approaches has been proposed for the digital signature
function. These approaches fall into two categories: direct and arbitrated. Direct Digital
Signature
Direct Digital Signatures involve the direct application of public-key algorithms involving
only the communicating parties. A digital signature may be formed by encrypting the entire
message with the sender’s private key, or by encrypting a hash code of the message with the
sender’s private key. Confidentiality can be provided by further encrypting the entire
message plus signature using either public or private key schemes. It is important to
perform the signature function first and then an outer confidentiality function, since in case
of dispute, some third party must view the message and its signature. But these approaches
are dependent on the security of the sender’s private-key. Will have problems if it is
lost/stolen and signatures forged. Need time-stamps and timely key revocation. Arbitrated
Digital Signature
The problems associated with direct digital signatures can be addressed by using an arbiter,
in a variety of possible arrangements. The arbiter plays a sensitive and crucial role in this
sort of scheme, and all parties must have a great deal of trust that the arbitration
mechanism is working properly. These schemes can be implemented with either private or
public-key algorithms, and the arbiter may or may not see the actual message contents.
Using Conventional encryption
XA : M || E ( Kxa ,[ IDx || H (M) ] )
A Y : E( Kay ,[ IDx || M || E (Kxa ,[ IDx ||H(M))] ) || T ])
It is assumed that the sender X and the arbiter A share a secret key Kxa and that A
and Y share secret key Kay. X constructs a message M and computes its hash value H(m)
. Then X transmits the message plus a signature to A. the signature consists of an identifier
IDx of X plus the hash value, all encrypted using Kxa. 70
A decrypts the signature and checks the hash value to validate the message. Then
A transmits a message to Y, encrypted with Kay. The message includes IDx, the original
message from X, the signature, and a timestamp.
Arbiter sees message
Problem : the arbiter could form an alliance with sender to deny a signed message,
or with the receiver to forge the sender’s signature.
Using Public Key Encryption
X : IDx ||E( PRx,[ IDx|| E ( PUy, E( PRx, M))]) A
A Y : E( PRa, [ IDx ||E (PUy, E (PRx, M))|| T] )
X double encrypts a message M first with X’s private key,PRx, and then with Y’s public key,
PUy. This is a signed, secret version of the message. This signed message, together with X’s
identifier , is encrypted again with PRx and, together with IDx, is sent to A. The inner,
double encrypted message is secure from the arbiter (and everyone else exceptY)
A can decrypt the outer encryption to assure that the message must have come
from X (because only X has PRx). Then A transmits a message to Y, encrypted with PRa. The
message includes IDx, the double encrypted message, and a timestamp.
Arbiter does not see message
Digital Signature Standard (DSS)
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published Federal
Information Processing Standard FIPS 186, known as the Digital Signature Standard (DSS).
The DSS makes use of the Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) and presents a new digital
signature technique, the Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA). The DSS uses an algorithm that
is designed to provide only the digital signature function and cannot be used for encryption
or key exchange, unlike RSA.
The RSA approach is shown below. The message to be signed is input to a hash function that
produces a secure hash code of fixed length. This hash code is then encrypted using the
sender's private key to form the signature. Both the message and the signature are then
transmitted.
The recipient takes the message and produces a hash code. The recipient also
decrypts the signature using the sender's public key. If the calculated hash code matches the
decrypted signature, the signature is accepted as valid. Because only the sender knows the
private key, only the sender could have produced a valid signature. 71
The DSS approach also makes use of a hash function. The hash code is provided as input to a
signature function along with a random number k generated for this particular signature.
The signature function also depends on the sender's private key (PRa) and a set of
parameters known to a group of communicating principals. We can consider this set to
constitute a global public key (PUG).The result is a signature consisting of two components,
labeled s and r.
At the receiving end, the hash code of the incoming message is generated. This plus the
signature is input to a verification function. The verification function also
depends on the global public key as well as the sender's public key (PUa), which is paired with
the sender's private key. The output of the verification function is a value that is equal to the
signature component r if the signature is valid. The signature function is such that only the
sender, with knowledge of the private key, could have produced the validsignature.

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DIGITAL SIGNATURE

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