Supporting digital signatures in mobile environments

Digital signatures, like physical signatures, can verify that a specific user affixed their signature to a document and they can also verify that the document is the same as when the user affixed the digital signature. Digital signature systems (DSS) use public key cryptography methods to create digital signatures. The integrity of the digital signature is tied to the security of the user's private key. As long as the user's private key is secure, then only the user can affix their digital signature to a document. In this paper, we examine methods and risks involved in creating digital signatures on workstations other than the user's primary workstation. The challenge is to allow the user to create a digital signature, which requires their private key, at workstations where we cannot guarantee the key's security.