Digital Signature Algorithm

The Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA) is a public-key cryptosystem and Federal Information Processing Standard for digital signatures, based on the mathematical concept of modular exponentiation and the discrete logarithm problem. In a public-key cryptosystem, two keys are generated: data can only be encrypted with the public key and encrypted data can only be decrypted with the private key. DSA is a variant of the Schnorr and ElGamal signature schemes.[1]: 486 

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) proposed DSA for use in their Digital Signature Standard (DSS) in 1991, and adopted it as FIPS 186 in 1994.[2] Five revisions to the initial specification have been released. The newest specification is: FIPS 186-5 from February 2023.[3] DSA is patented but NIST has made this patent available worldwide royalty-free. Specification FIPS 186-5 indicates DSA will no longer be approved for digital signature generation, but may be used to verify signatures generated prior to the implementation date of that standard.

  1. ^ Schneier, Bruce (1996). Applied Cryptography. Wiley. ISBN 0-471-11709-9.
  2. ^ "FIPS PUB 186: Digital Signature Standard (DSS), 1994-05-19". qcsrc.nist.gov. Archived from the original on 2013-12-13.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference FIPS-186-4 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).