Extra data appended to a message which identifies and authenticates the sender and message data using public-key encryption. The sender uses a one-way hash function to generate a hash-code of about 32 bits from the message data. He then encrypts the hash-code with his private key. The receiver recomputes the hash-code from the data and decrypts the received hash with the sender' s public key. If the two hash-codes are equal, the receiver can be sure that data has not been corrupted and that it came from the given sender. (1995-02-07)
