Digital Signatures

New Documents

• US Senate, S. 1594, Digital Signature and Electronic Authentication Law (SEAL) of 1998.
  
  
• US House of Represenatives, H.R. 3472, Digital Signature and Electronic Authentication Law (SEAL) of 1998.
  
  
• Graham Greenleaf and Roger Clarke, "Privacy Implications of Digital Signatures".
  
  
• Carl Ellison's paper " Establishing Identity Without Certification Authorities" on the desirability of using a global key certification authority.
  
  
• Dr. Ron Rivest, "SDSI - A Simple Distributed Security Infrastructure" alternative to the creation of a global certificate hierarchies envisioned by the X-509 group.

Digital Signatures and the Law

• C. Bradford Biddle, Legislating Market Winners, Digital Signature Laws and the Electronic Commerce Marketplace, World Wide Web Journal, Summer 1997.
  
  
• Utah Digital Signature Act, Utah Code §§ 46-3-101 to 46-3-504, Enacted by L. 1995, ch. 61
  
  
  • C. Bradford Biddle, Misplaced Priorities: The Utah Digital Signature Act and Liability Allocation in a Public Key Infrastructure, 33 San Diego L. Rev. 1143 (1996).
    
    
• The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (Draft).
  
  
• American Bar Association, Section of Science and Technology, Digital Signature Guidelines,
  
  
• US Senate, S. 1594, Digital Signature and Electronic Authentication Law (SEAL) of 1998.
  
  
• US House of Represenatives, H.R. 3472, Digital Signature and Electronic Authentication Law (SEAL) of 1998.
  
  
• Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Matrix of State Government Electronic and Digital Signatue Legislation
  
  
• McBride Baker & Coles, SUMMARY OF ELECTRONIC COMMERCE AND DIGITAL SIGNATURE LEGISLATION
  
  

International Materials

• German Digital Signature Law (SigG), June 13, 1997.
  
  
• Italian Digitial SIgnature bill, 1997 [draft] [IT].
  
  
• United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), Draft Uniform Rules on Electronic Signatures
  
  
• Interdisciplinary Centre for Law and Information Technology, Project Digital Signatures.
  

The US Digital Signature Standard

The Digital Signature Standard (DSS) is a cryptographic standard promulgated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 1994. It has been adopted as the federal standard for authenticating electronic documents, much as a written signature verifies the authenticity of a paper document. The DSS was the first cryptographic standard developed under the regime established by the Computer Security Act, which was intended to limit the role of the National Security Agency (NSA) in the development of civilian standards. Documents obtained by EPIC under the Freedom of Information Act have demonstrated that the DSS development process was, in fact, dominated by NSA.

• Computer Law Reporter article detailing the development of the DSS and the legal and policy issues involved.  
  
  
• NIST's 1994 Federal Register notice announcing the final adoption of the DSS as a Federal Information Processing Standard.  
  
  
• NIST's 1991 Federal Register notice announcing the proposed DSS.  
  
  
• RSA Data Security, Inc.'s letter to Rep. Tim Valentine concerning the proposed DSS.  
  
  
• NSA responses to questions posed by Joe Abernathy of the Houston Chronicle.  
  
  
• A description of the DSS from the January 1993 NIST Computer Science Laboratory bulletin.  
  
  
• Federal court brief filed by CPSR arguing in support of the declassification of NIST and NSA documents concerning the DSS.  
  
  
• Analysis of NIST documents concerning DSS released under the Freedom of Information Act.