Digital Signature

In today's commercial environment, establishing a framework for the authentication of computer-based information requires a familiarity with concepts and professional skills from both the legal and computer security fields. Combining these two disciplines is not an easy task. Concepts from the information security field often correspond only loosely to concepts from the legal field, even in situations where the terminology is similar. For example, from the information security point of view, "digital signature" means the result of applying to specific information certain specific technical processes described below. The historical legal concept of "signature" is broader. It recognizes any mark made with the intention of authenticating the marked document.In a digital setting, today's broad legal concept of "signature" may well include markings as diverse as digitized images of paper signatures, typed notations such as "/s/ John Smith," or even addressing notations, such as electronic mail origination headers.

From an information security viewpoint, these simple "electronic signatures" are distinct from the "digital signatures" described in this tutorial and in the technical literature, although "digital signature" is sometimes used to mean any form of computer- based signature. These Guidelines use "digital signature" only as it is used in information security terminology, as meaning the result of applying the technical processes described in this tutorial.

To explain the value of digital signatures in legal applications, this tutorial begins with an overview of the legal significance of signatures. It then sets forth the basics of digital signature technology, and examines how, with some legal and institutional infrastructure, digital signature technology can be applied as a robust computer-based alternative to traditional signatures.

Signatures and the Law

A signature is not part of the substance of a transaction, but rather of its represen tation or form. Signing writings serve the following general purposes:
Evidence: A signature authenticates a writing by identifying the signer with the signed document. When the signer makes a mark in a distinctive manner, the writing becomes attributable to the signer.
Ceremony: The act of signing a document calls to the signer's attention the legal significance of the signer's act, and thereby helps prevent "inconsiderate engagements.
Approval: In certain contexts defined by law or custom, a signature expresses the signer's approval or authorization of the writing, or the signer's intention that it have legal effect.
Efficiency and logistics: A signature on a written document often imparts a sense of clarity and finality to the transaction and may lessen the subsequent need to inquire beyond the face of a document.Negotiable instruments, for example, rely upon formal requirements, including a signature, for their ability to change hands with ease, rapidity, and minimal interruption.
The formal requirements for legal transactions, including the need for signatures, vary in different legal systems, and also vary with the passage of time. There is also variance in the legal consequences of failure to cast the transaction in a required form. The statute of frauds of the common law tradition, for example, does not render a transaction invalid for lack of a "writing signed by the party to be charged," but rather makes it unenforceable in court, a distinction which has caused the practical application of the statute to be greatly limited in case law.

During this century, most legal systems have reduced formal requirements, or at least have minimized the consequences of failure to satisfy formal requirements. Nevertheless, sound practice still calls for transactions to be formalized in a manner which assures the parties of their validity and enforceability.In current practice, formalization usually involves documenting the transaction on paper and signing or authenticating the paper. Traditional methods, however, are undergoing fundamental change. Documents continue to be written on paper, but sometimes merely to satisfy the need for a legally recognized form. In many instances, the information exchanged to effect a transaction never takes paper form. Computer-based information can also be utilized differently than its paper counterpart. For example, computers can "read" digital information and transform the information or take programmable actions based on the information. Information stored as bits rather than as atoms of ink and paper can travel near the speed of light, may be duplicated without limit and with insignificant cost.

Although the basic nature of transactions has not changed, the law has only begun to adapt to advances in technology. The legal and business communities must develop rules and practices which use new technology to achieve and surpass the effects historically expected from paper forms.

Some Web History

The World Wide Web was originally developed in 1990 at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics. It is now managed by The World Wide Web Consortium.

The WWW Consortium is funded by a large number of corporate members, including AT&T, Adobe Systems, Inc., Microsoft Corporation and Sun Microsystems, Inc. Its purpose is to promote the growth of the Web by developing technical specifications and reference software that will be freely available to everyone. The Consortium is run by MIT with INRIA (The French National Institute for Research in Computer Science) acting as European host, in collaboration with CERN.

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was instrumental in the development of early graphical software utilizing the World Wide Web features created by CERN. NCSA focuses on improving the productivity of researchers by providing software for scientific modeling, analysis, and visualization. The World Wide Web was an obvious way to fulfill that mission. NCSA Mosaic, one of the earliest web browsers, was distributed free to the public. It led directly to the phenomenal growth of the World Wide Web.

How the Web works

The World Wide Web is the most popular part of the Internet by far. Once you spend time on the Web you will begin to feel like there is no limit to what you can discover. The Web allows rich and diverse communication by displaying text, graphics, animation, photos, sound and video.

So just what is this miraculous creation? The Web physically consists of your personal computer, web browser software, a connection to an Internet service provider, computers called servers that host digital data, and routers and switches to direct the flow of information.

The Web is known as a client-server system. Your computer is the client; the remote computers that store electronic files are the servers.

Let's say you want to visit the the Louvre museum website. First you enter the address or URL of the website in your web browser. Then your browser requests the web page from the web server that hosts the Louvre's site. The server sends the data over the Internet to your computer. Your web browser interprets the data, displaying it on your computer screen.

The Louvre's website also has links to the sites of other museums, such as the Vatican Museum. When you click on that link, you access the web server for the Vatican Museum.

The "glue" that holds the Web together is called hypertext and hyperlinks. This feature allows electronic files on the Web to be linked so you can jump easily between them. On the Web, you navigate through pages of information--commonly known as browsing or surfing--based on what interests you at that particular moment.

To access the Web you need a web browser, such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer. How does your web browser distinguish between web pages and other types of data on the Internet? Web pages are written in a computer language called Hypertext Markup Language or HTML.

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