Digital Signatures Project Paper Outline
Project Paper Outline
1. Digital Signatures Description: a digital signature refers to a scientific approach used to confirm the genuineness as well as the truthfulness of a message, application or digital content. Digital signatures are a digital equal of a stamped seal or signature, but providing increasingly inherent security. The primary purpose of a digital signature is to solve the issue of interfering and mimicking in digital data transfers and communication.
2. Technology Involved: digital signatures are centred around public key cryptography (PKC, also referred to as asymmetric cryptography. With the help of a public key procedure including RSA, a user can generate both the private and public keys. The public key is used to fashion a one-way hash of digital data to be signed, and the private key is utilized to encode the hash.
3. Future Trends:
• The technology’s market share and value are anticipated to grow exponentially in the future.
• Cloud deployment approach of digital signatures will witness increased adoption proportion.
• The technology will confidently be used in the banking sector, which is presently growing exponentially.
1. Companies Involved in Digital Signatures: some leading technology companies including Entrust Technologies, Microsoft and Network Associates are heavily involved with digital signatures.
2. Regulatory Issues: some of the significant regulatory issues concerning digital signatures include:
• Authentication is the major problem.
• Digital signature tends to be represented negatively despite their amazing capabilities of ensuring the security of digital data.
1. Global Implications: many global implications are surrounding the area of digital signatures. To begin with, there are privacy rights problems with certifying authorities, and a binding contract to confirm the legitimacy of a digital signature.
Digital Signature
Digital Signatures Description: a digital signature refers to a scientific approach used to confirm the genuineness as well as the truthfulness of a message, application or digital content. Digital signatures are a digital equal of a stamped seal or signature, but providing increasingly inherent security. The main purpose of a digital signature is to solve the issue of interfering and mimicking in digital data transfers and communication. The digital signatures are often used as a security token. It provides a mechanism for assuring the integrity of data, the authenticity of the signer and the non-repudiation of the entire signature to external parties. Essentially the signature seeks to provide a way to verifying that the data that available has not been modified or replaced to ensure that it maintains its integrity (Warwick & Baum, 2001). Besides, the signature seeks to provide a way that may be used to establish the integrity of the data signer for authentication. Lastly, it provides an ability for the data integrity and authentication to be provable to a third party.
Digital signatures are “enciphered data” that are created using cryptographic algorithms. The algorithms play an essential role in defining the ciphering approach that is used for a message or document. The digital signature algorithms exist so that people would not have to create them from scratch. The algorithm was first invented in the 70s and was based on the cryptography or public key Cryptography. The widely used digital signature is the RSA that comes from the name of the inventor Rivest Shamir and Adelman in 1978 (Turner, 2016). The model is used in over 80% of the digital signature around the world. Over the years the algorithm has undergone several, and it has successfully stood the test of time. The reason for this is because no one has successfully found a way of cracking the RSA algorithm.
Digital signatures are used in many cases that at times people do not even know. They include retail payment system, for instance, the MasterCard’s, high values banking, e-passports, e-Ids and connecting to SSL-enabled websites (Pointcheval, & Stern, 2000). Based on this system each user has both the public and the private key. The two keys are linked, or they are merely mathematically inverse to each other. The keys work in a way that the public key can decipher and operation is done by the private key. The private key often performs the task of signing, while on the other hand, the public key plays the role of verification. The security of a digital signature such as the RSA is because one having information about the public key does not provide any understanding of the private key. It is from this basis that anybody can access the public key and use it to verify the authenticity of a document. On the other hand, the private key remains with the user and only used to sign in.
Technology Involved: digital signatures are centered on public key cryptography (PKC, also referred to as asymmetric cryptography. With the help of a public key procedure including RSA, a user can generate both the private and public keys. The public key is used to fashion a one-way hash of digital data to be signed, and the private key is utilized to encode the hash. A digital signature works around the singer and the potential verifier. The signer initiates the process by running an algorithm that generates the (pk, ask). The PK represents the signer’s public key and sk is the signers private key. The author then makes the public key open for anyone that might require verifying the key associated with the signer (Goldwasser, et al 2007). It is essential that there might be may public key signed to different individual and one who is authenticated needs to understand who the public key belongs to. Once the key has been generated the digital scheme will make it possible for the signer to certify that any other individual that knows the pk will verify that the message comes from the signer. They can also confirm if the message has undergone any modification. Therefore, for any message that one sent there is a key that can be used to verify the authenticity for the source.
In understanding how the digital key works, it is essential to look at the software company seeking to issue updates in a way that is authenticated. In this case, the focus is to ensure that when the company releases the patches, its clients can verify that the patches are authentic. In this way, the third-party malicious software would not have the ability to fool the user to accepting stamps that were not realized the company. In this way, the company would develop a public key together with the secret key and distribute the public key to the clients in a reliable manner (Goldwasser, et al 2007). The company can those create the patch with a digital signature. Whenever the client downloads the upgrade, the system would be able to check the patch if it is authentic.
In some cases, a malicious party might attempt producing a fake patch. In some circumstance, the fake patch might be a modification of the original patch or it might be a version that is not related to the patches. If the signature scheme is secure then when the client tries to verify the patches the software will identify that the signature is not valid. It is always essential for the client to reject the patches even if the modification is minimal. The digital signature thus works around the aspect of public and private keys. The authenticity of these keys helps to keep malicious people from altering information online.
Future Trends:
The technology market share and value is anticipated to grow exponentially in the future. The global digital signature market was valued at USD 1.04 billion by the year 2017 (Ashiq, 2016). However there is an expected to be a growth in the industry and 2023, it is expected that the industry would be worth about USD 3.96 billion (Brovig-Hassen). The segments of the markets that are expected to bring about this growth include deployment on premise, hybrid, cloud technologies and other components such as the hardware software and services. There are end-user industries that are expected to spur this growth. They include the BFSI, healthcare, government, oil& gas military and defense logistics and transportation. Besides, Cloud deployment approach of digital signatures will witness increased adoption proportion.
The technology will confidently be used in the banking sector, which is presently growing exponentially. The banking industry and insurance is an inevitable part of one’s personal and professional life. Therefore, there is a need to enhance these systems regarding technology for the validation and protection against malicious alterations. The use of digital signatures would bring about the aspect of reducing the overall operating costs that are needed in opening a banking account and the paper formalities. With the use of this technology, there is the aspect of increased customer engagement that leads to the reduction in the time and effort. The technological revolution is expected to accelerate the rate at, and the way the handling banking affairs and most importantly the online channels and this is what would result in the growth in the industry.
The need for data security during the transition of sensitive information is another area that would experience growth in the use of digital signature. There is a boom in the e-commerce and online banking which is raising the need for companies to secure their networks to gain the confidence of the customer. In recent, year’s big firms such as Yahoo were hit by a wave of cyber-attacks where most of the customer details were lost and compromised. These issues raised a lot of concern on the security of data in online systems and thus companies had to advance the approaches of transferring information in their platform. The changes have led to the faster and higher adoption of digital signature that acts as the sender’s personal seal of authenticity over the electronic document. However, the biggest challenge that the market has been experiencing is the lack of understanding on how to deploy these systems and the inability to dispose of the keys once the lifetime has expired. The problem has led to the slow growth in the market share.
Companies Involved in Digital Signatures: some leading technology companies including Entrust Technologies, Microsoft and Network Associates are heavily involved with digital signatures. Google has recently stalked some cash on the market for digital signatures on the electronic document with a venture capital investment in DocuSign. DocuSign is used by companies in the signing of digital invoices official documents and business agreements in a manner that is more secure. Currently, the technology is in use with over 20 million users who are estimated to have signed over 150 million documents. Google decided to venture into the electronic signatures since the technology is being adopted rapidly by enterprises and small firms. The approach that Google has with DocuSign has it to reach millions of customers worldwide. Users of DocuSign can upload the digital document to the services and request specific people to sign it digitally in a unique signature. With the increase in the use of these digital signatures and the need for security, there is room for more expansion.
Several factors are pushing these companies to increase their investment in digital signatures. Some of the driving forces are the elimination of fraud, technological innovation, enhanced integrity, scalability, and transparency. Besides the increase includes based solution is first increasing the opportunity for the digital signature market. However, the challenges that these companies are facing cover implementation cost and incompatibility. These companies are projecting that the deployment of a cloud-based solution would be the largest segment as they help in reducing the operation cost and the implementation. The visual indicators verify that the document is authentic and that it was not altered.
Regulatory Issues:
Authentication is the major problem in the use of digital signatures. Just recently, in the state of California, a lawyer used DocuSign to sign documents that were used to commit bankruptcy. The lawyers used the application in the place of original signatures as it is common in most of the commercial settings. The court in California ruled that DocuSign is not appropriate for many business settings and they do not constitute to a replacement for the original signatures. The challenge of being able to prove that the signatures are authenticity is what made the judge to make the ruling. Therefore, the digital signature technology is suffering the biggest challenge of one being able to prove the authenticity of the signatures
In the physical name, there is always the aspect of witnesses that can assert that the document was signed.
On the other hand, digital signatures do not incorporate any form of physical, and there is always the possibility that the other person typing things on the computer might not be the one who’s on behalf they are signing. However, some websites have devised a method of trying to authenticate the information by for instance asking for information that can only be known by the actual signer. Other approaches include setting PIN systems, logging IP addresses and many others. These systems have just tried to aid in authenticating the digital signatures, but still, there is the problem of proof. With this challenge, many of the firms that seek to venture in the industry have looked at it with much skepticism.
Digital signature tends to be represented negatively despite their amazing capabilities of ensuring the security of digital data. Although many states have adopted legislation that regulates the CA PKI process and provided suggestions on some of the way that the digital signatures can be used, there are still some fundamental problems about the use of the system. One of the challenges is that the Public key infrastructure is flawed to the point that it does not work for most of the organizations (Ashiq, 2016). The problems are even more enormous for businesses that seek to send the documents to their clients or customers. The primary concern is that the PKI addresses encryption and not the process of signing and better suited for the securing of servers and not the signing of documents. Besides, there is the PKI system is often set to failure while others system such as the ESIGN is working better. Therefore, there is generally a set of disbelief with the use of the digital signatures. The many failures that are have experienced over the years have often made it difficult for people to believe that it can work. Organizations have thus often shied off from using the system despite the various advances.
Global Implications:
One of the implications related to the use of digital signatures is the changes in legality. One of most essential elements of a contract is that it should mutually be acetated legally. There is the need for signatories and any overseeing governing bodies to agree on its legitimacy (Dang, 2009). Since the inception, the digital signatures have been accepted as legitimate and legally binding representations to an agreement. In the cases where they are appropriate, they signature have mutually altered the definition of what a signed document is. In the cases where the signature meets the ESIGN requirements, it is eventually taken as a signed document and legally binding. Therefore, the idea of signature is getting a new definition due to the electronic signatures.
The other visible change is on the issue of security. The issue of security in the digital signature is not a new thing but physical document also suffer the same vulnerability. In addition, to the idea that paper can be stolen or misplaced, there is also a possibility that it can be damaged by fire, flood and other unforeseen catastrophes. With digital signatures a document does not lie around aimlessly like the way it is with a physical document. The moment the document is signed it can be stored safely in a digital file. Besides, the document can also be accessed from any point. Therefore the idea of digital signatures brings about the aspect of security.
There is also greater efficiency in multiple transaction contracts. The efficiency in the use of digital signatures is often seen in how organizations sign their documents. With digital signatures internal parties can sign contracts regardless of the location that they are. Due to the use of digital signatures national, local and international parties can sign their contracts with much efficiency thus help in the quick finalization of the business deal. Organizations are also experiencing a change I the audit controls. Digital signatures make it easier to manage a variety of record keeping practices. Contracts can be turned into sources of documentation within a short period (Ashiq, 2016). The agreement might be internal between employees, or it might be external with other organization. Therefore, digital signature has provided a new approach where the organization can interact and sign contracts with much easy.
There is also greater efficiency in the private contracts. Due to the digital signatures, the internal operations of business has dramatically changed. Due to the efficiency and convenience that digital signatures offer, there has been a rapid increase in its use. More companies have resorted to using contracts to enforce general operations, something that was used in the past. The internal contracts range from the basic projects assigned to the more formal agreements that include employee’s deals and promotions. The digital signatures have helped in bringing about the aspect of formality and accountability to the day to the activity of a business. Therefore, the future might see the use of digital signature increase.
While there might be many challenges that have emerged as a result of the use of digital signatures, there are still many benefits that come with the uses. While the signatures might be changing the way people make agreements, they are also helping to shift hoe business are done. The most important thing is for policymakers to develop the better policy that can assist in guiding the use of these signatures. The society should also move from the conventional way of understanding signed documents and adapt to the changing system. A better understanding and application of the digital signatures might help in making these technologies more effective in the future. As the trends keep changing the use of digital signature might become the basis of the signing of a contract and any online transactions.
References
Ashiq, J. (2016). Recommendations for Providing Digital Signature Service. Cryptomathic, 34-56.
Brovig-Hassen, R. &., & Danielsen, A. (2000). Digital Signatures. Sacramento, California: The Committee.
Campbell, D. (2005). E-Commerce and the law of digital signatures. Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana Publications.
Dang, Q. (2009). Randomized hashing for digital signatures. Gaithersburg, M.D.: U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Goldreich, F. (2002). New Directions in Cryptography. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, 67.
Goldwasser, S. M., Micali, S., & Rivest, R. (2007). A digital signature scheme secure against adaptive chosen-message attacks. Journal of Computing, 281-308.
Katz, J. (2014). Digital Signatures. Springer.
Pointcheval, D. &., & Stern, J. (2000). Security arguments for digital signatures and blind signatures. Journal of Cryptology.
Turner, D. (2016). Major Standards and Compliance of Digital Signatures: A Worldwide Consideration. Cryptomathic, 134.
Warwick, F. &., & Baum, M. S. (2001). Secure electronic commerce. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall PTR.
