When you perform a transaction in a bank, authenticating yourself is a huge need. This can be done by using your social security card, driver’s license, or even just a handwritten signature. These mechanisms are put in place to ensure that it is only you who’ll transfer or withdraw money from your account. If there’s someone who tried to impersonate your identity, hopefully, he or she will be caught.
As we all know, Bitcoin uses a public ledger that allows everyone to record their transactions. However, what can be the hinder on people who adds fraudulent transactions that provide them several benefits? For example, Ben can simply add the money sent to him by Alice to the ledger. To prevent this, the transaction is broadcasted to the network together with the digital signature. Below are the things ensured by a digital signature.
• The message is not yet tampered with
• The message was sent by a designated sender
Asymmetric encryption and hashing algorithm are used to create the digital signature.
Hanging refers to the use of an algorithm that converts the input irreversibly into a fixed length’s unique output. In Bitcoin, it uses the hashing algorithm SHA256, which refers to the output (also called a hash or digest) is 256 binary digits.
You can simply think of hashing as the mathematical technique in which you can convert the input value into output quickly. However, when an output value is given, it is impossible to figure and take the input value down used as a way to gain the corresponding result. For more information, you can visit here site homepage.
To conceptualize this idea metaphorically, take the input eggs, sugar, and other else while the output is the cake. The oven serves as the algorithm which is responsible for turning the raw ingredients into a finished product. Once the cake is already baked, turning it back into raw ingredients is impossible. Thus, it is impossible to exactly determine the used and status of raw ingredients before, during, and after it was put inside the oven.
How to Create a Digital Signature?
To effectively create a digital signature, you only need to hash the network from the message broadcast first. After that, you can now proceed to encrypt the hash.
As mentioned previously, the encryption type that was employed by Bitcoin is asymmetric encryption, which refers to the type of encryption using public and private keys.
The way asymmetric encryption works is by providing a person with public and private keys corresponding to one another. While both can be used to message encrypting, to decrypt is only by using the other one to another. Simply, you will only encrypt a public key, then it is a private key needed to decrypt it, and vice versa.
No one else has access to the private key as it belongs to you only. In contrast, you can entrust your public key to anyone you know. For a better understanding, let us put Ben and Alice as an example.
So, Alice sent Ben a private message, and she encrypted the message by using the public key given to her by Ben. Due to Ben is the only one that has a private key; he is the only one who has the capability to decrypt the message. If Ben is going to send a private message to Alice, he must encrypt it by using Alice’s public key and vice versa. She can decrypt with her private key.
In Bitcoin, the main goal is to send private messages. Take note that the ledger is public. Nevertheless, the purpose of making sure that messages were sent by the sender to its receiver and that the messages aren’t tampered with is served by asymmetric encryption.
