Cryptography Reference
In-Depth Information
15.7
FINAL REMARKS
In this chapter, we elaborated on digital signatures and DSSs, and we overviewed
and discussed some exemplary systems (i.e., RSA, ElGamal, DSA, PSS, and PSS-
R). Note that many other DSSs—with or without specific properties—are described
and discussed in the literature. There are even a few DSSs that can be constructed
from zero-knowledge authentication protocols (see Section 17.3).
In either case, it is hoped that digital signatures and DSSs provide the digital
counterpart to handwritten signatures and that they can be used to provide non-
repudiation services (i.e., services that make it impossible or useless for communi-
cating peers to repudiate their participation). Against this background, many coun-
tries and communities have put forth new legislation regarding the use of digital sig-
natures. Examples include the Directive 1999/93/EC of the European Parliament and
of the Council of December 13, 1999, on a Community Framework for Electronic
Signatures and the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act in
the United States (commonly known as E-SIGN). But although many countries have
digital signature laws, it is important to note that these laws have not been seriously
challenged in court and that it is not clear what the legal status of digital signatures
really is. The fact that digital signatures are based on mathematical formulas intu-
itively makes us believe that the evidence they provide is particularly strong. This
belief is seductive and often wrong (e.g., [25-27]).
References
[1]
Pfitzmann, B.,
Digital Signature Schemes: General Framework and Fail-Stop Signatures.
Springer-
Verlag, LNCS 1100, 1996.
[2]
Hammond, B., et al.,
Digital Signatures.
RSA Press, Osborne/McGraw-Hill, Emeryville, CA,
2002.
[3]
Goldwasser, S., S. Micali, and R.L. Rivest, “A Digital Signature Scheme Secure Against Adaptive
Chosen-Message Attacks,”
SIAM Journal of Computing
, Vol. 17, No. 2, April 1988, pp. 281-308.
[4]
Diffie, W., and M.E. Hellman, “New Directions in Cryptography,”
IEEE Transactions on Infor-
mation Theory
, IT-22(6), 1976, pp. 644-654.
[5]
Rivest, R.L., A. Shamir, and L. Adleman, “A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-
Key Cryptosystems,”
Communications of the ACM
, 21(2), February 1978, pp. 120-126.
[6]
Bellare, M., and P. Rogaway, “The Exact Security of Digital Signatures—How to Sign with RSA
and Rabin,”
Proceedings of EUROCRYPT '96
, Springer-Verlag, LNCS 1070, 1996, pp. 399-414.
[7]
ElGamal, T., “A Public Key Cryptosystem and a Signature Scheme Based on Discrete Logarithm,”
IEEE Transactions on Information Theory
, IT-31(4), 1985, pp. 469-472.
