Assessing cryptographic signature schemes from a legal perspective

摘要

As handwritten signatures are being replaced by electronic signatures, the study of electronic signatures is crucial. Research related to electronic signatures is briefly divided into two areas, namely cryptography and legal research. In the area of cryptography, it focuses on security notions of signature schemes. In the area of legal research, it focuses on the legal framework to facilitate the use of electronic signatures, especially for the applications of electronic commerce. However, research studies are rarely cross-reference to each other. From a legal perspective, an electronic signature must satisfy specific requirements in order to be recognized in law. In this paper, we propose an assessment framework for cryptographic signature schemes based on the legal requirements for electronic signatures. We further carry out the assessment for several cryptographic signature schemes and find a failure of a well-recognized scheme. It means that electronic signatures from such scheme are not likely to be recognized in law. To our best knowledge, our study is the first research work to address the interaction between legal requirements for electronic signatures and cryptographic signature schemes.