Which leaves the issue of what we call the property that differentiates a private key signature from a MAC or MD?
A private key signature can only be produced by the holder of the private key, and can be verified by anyone (who has the public key). That is, it is asymmetric, just like PK encryption is. MACs and MDs (if keyed at all) use a shared secret, and thus behave like symmetric crypto.
Cheers,
Ben.
-- http://www.apache-ssl.org/ben.html http://www.thebunker.net/
"There is no limit to what a man can do or how far he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit." - Robert Woodruff
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