Federal Information
Processing Standards Publication 186-2
2000 January 27
Specifications for the
DIGITAL SIGNATURE STANDARD (DSS)
1. INTRODUCTION
This publication prescribes three algorithms suitable for digital signature (ds) generation and verification. The first algorithm, the Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA), is described in sections 4 - 6 and appendices 1 - 5. The second algorithm, the RSA ds algorithm, is discussed in section 7 and the third algorithm, the ECDSA algorithm, is discussed in section 8 and recommended elliptic curves in appendix 6. An important change notice has been appended to this document.
2. GENERAL
When a message is received, the recipient may desire to verify that the message has not been altered in transit. Furthermore, the recipient may wish to be certain of the originator's identity. Both of these services can be provided by a ds algorithm. A digital signature is an electronic analogue of a written signature in that the digital signature can be used in proving to the recipient or a third party that the message was, in fact, signed by the originator. Digital signatures may also be generated for stored data and programs so that the integrity of the data and programs may be verified at any later time.
This publication prescribes two algorithms suitable for digital signature generation and verification.
3. USE OF A DIGITAL SIGNATURE (ds) ALGORITHM
A ds algorithm is used by a signatory to generate a digital signature on data and by a verifier to verify the authenticity of the signature. Each signatory has a public and private key. The private key is used in the signature generation process and the public key is used in the signature verification process. For both signature generation and verification, the data which is referred to as a message,
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