During my quest for access to the System i, I uncovered an absolute diamond.

By Joe Pluta

This article is going to start out with a little bad news. Understand that most of the bad news is my fault; I'm going to have to revisit some of the problem areas I encountered when I have more time. But as they say, it's an ill wind that blows no good, and in this case in particular, my hunt for the best alternate access bore unexpectedly wonderful fruit.

Whether it's verifying the integrity of a message's source, a software license file, or a download, employing digital signatures is imperative.

By Joe Cropper

So just what is a digital signature anyway?

A digital signature is the digital era's equivalent of yesterday's hand-written signature. That is, each time we sign that receipt after using our debit or credit card, we are effectively telling our financial institution that we agreed to pay a given price for a given item. In the event that an alleged fraudulent charge is made, authorities can perform signature comparisons to help determine the validity of the claim. Digital signatures work in a similar fashion for electronic messages.