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PKI and Digital Signatures

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by isabelle_irani

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Hello. This is actually a long question - I realise the importance of PKI and since it appears to be still in its nascent stages was looking to speak to someone regarding the potential uses of PKI and how does one get a digital signature. When youreceive public/ private key from a certificate authority do you automatically receive a digital signature? As an end user how would I get a digital signature? Furthermore, if I get eCredentials does it automatically include a digital signature? What practicallities would you envision in the future from both transaction use and application use for PKI? What are the current limitations? IS it true that keys from Verisign, Baltimore and entrust are not interoperable? Are there products thatfacilitate interoperability?

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by micxba

When you sign up with e.g. VerSign or Thawte you automatically get your Private Key wich includes the ability to sign Files. Depending on what E-Mail Client you are using, this is directly installed there. Signing messages is as easy as clicking thelittle "blue" envelope in Outlook. For other receiving the public key, you just go to Start-Search-For People and choose the VeriSign Drop Down. It works well but I don
t like VersiSign, because they are not flexible. After changin the browser on my maching and setting up a new account I was not able to download my cert again. Same Computer and same Browser ID must be used. Thawte is somewhat better, because you can also include several E-Mail addresses.

by arodrigues

I'm also doing research on Digital Signatures. From what I have seen so far, we are still in the very early stages of the game. There are many vendors out there trying to win this game but they have not yet come up with a good product looking at what they're requiring users to do. Some require that users download and install softwares, before they can sign a document. That can generate problems, if you're in IT you know. Also Dig. Sig. are not portable. If you download to one machine and latteron move to another you can't use that Dig. Sig. or will have to get a separate one. Other products require users to scan their sig. or have a device to capture it from the paper. I don't see users going for that right now.

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