Comments for Digital Signatures: what are they, and how do they protect me?

Comment from Mark on 2009-09-26

2009-09-26T17:06:50Z

bevin: google it ;=)

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A comment on: Digital Signatures: what are they, and how do they protect me?

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Comment from Bevin Pettitt on 2009-09-15

2009-09-16T01:57:09Z

Bob,
Please provide more info on that book "Crypto".

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A comment on: Digital Signatures: what are they, and how do they protect me?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
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Comment from Bob Rutske on 2009-09-15

2009-09-15T20:44:33Z

The story behind "Public Key Encryption" and how 3 young men came up with it is told in a fasinating book called, "Crypto". Recommended Read.

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A comment on: Digital Signatures: what are they, and how do they protect me?

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Comment from Leo Notenboom on 2007-02-13

2007-02-14T02:00:03Z

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

My examples are all based on GnuPG - open source GPG/PGP cryptography.

Private keys aren't managed - you keep your private key in a safe place.

Public keys can be shared publicly, like I have in a post here or two.
There are also keyservers that the encryption tools know about where you
can put your public key for anyone to retreive.

You generate your own public and private keys.

Keys are most commonly identified by email address.

An imposter could create a phoney key pair, post the public key as
belonging to someone else, and then use the private key in an attempt to
impersonate that someone else. That's why, for example, in addition to
posting my public key on a key server, I've also posted it here on a
site that I control. In practice, before accepting someone's public key
you want to take steps to confirm that it does, indeed, belong to the
person it claims to. There's another whole level of trust relationships
involving "signing" the keys, so that if someone you trust has signed a
public key, you can then trust that public key. It can get quite
complex. There's much more information on this in the GnuPG
documentation.

Leo
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFF0m0BCMEe9B/8oqERAlreAJ0diPHbMN9SGggBNEo1T0jQIq8okQCfaLhS
qU4x+FWeG/94izUUwR1syDo=
=0O4B
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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A comment on: Digital Signatures: what are they, and how do they protect me?

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Comment from Jim Lemasters on 2007-02-13

2007-02-13T20:19:03Z

How are the Private & public keys actually disseminated and stored so that they are easily used by the sender and receiver of a message?
Who generates and distributes these keys?
How does the receiver know how to match the message with the right public key (by email address, user name, SSN)?
Couldn't the imposter just send their own public key that matches their private key in the phoney message?

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A comment on: Digital Signatures: what are they, and how do they protect me?

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Comment from danny on 2006-07-13

2006-07-13T12:18:23Z

Er thanks. My head is swimming already. I'm seeing platypuses and rubberduckies along with da vinci code style letters...Score one for Mr. Langdon!

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A comment on: Digital Signatures: what are they, and how do they protect me?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
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