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| More and more people are digitally signing their e-mail messages. By doing this, the person receiving the message can ensure that the message has come from you (or at least your computer) and not someone else. This is because only one key can decrypt the signature and thus the message would have had to have come from the person with the other key. |
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| There are many software packages available today for encrypting. These same packages usually have a digital signature capability. To digitally sign a document you must give out your public key to everyone to whom your want to send messages. When you digitally sign a message, you are not encrypting the e-mail message, only the signature. |
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| The easiest way to have your public key available is to send it with the message the first time that you send that person a message. It does not matter that it is now available to everyone. That is why it is called a public key. Only the person with the private key can encrypt items that work with that public key, and if you encrypt with the public key, only the private key can decrypt it. |
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| When the message comes into your mailbox, it will have a heading stating Begin Signature or something similar. You must then follow the instructions for your software package to verify the signature. You will be shown who the message is from and when it was sent. If there is a problem, then you will be shown a message stating that. |
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| Some e-mail packages, such as Outlook, have the ability to automatically digitally sign every e-mail message that you send. They also have the ability to receive and verify signatures and will automatically store that person's name and key for you. If your e-mail package does not do this automatically, then you will have to enter the message into your encryption program to verify the signature. |
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