Digital Signatures and Certificates

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--- Digital Signatures and Certificates ---

Digital certificates are used primarily for server to browser and server to server transactions.

	An electronic document issued by a Certificate Authority (CA - a trusted source who verifies your identity). Who you are is "certified" - not what you send.
	Piece of data that is transmitted to instantaneously validate your identity in electronic transactions.

Check your browser to view certificates registered on your computer.

A digital certificate consists of six pieces of information:

Companies that deal with digital certificates include...

	Thawte
	Verisign

	A digital signature is a hash function run on a message to be sent with the result, which can be used to verify the message was received.
	The receiver runs a similar hash algorithm and compares the results. If the value (digital signature) is the same, the message was not tampered with.