Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by codahale 4057 days ago
Two things:

First, you're describing RSA signatures. "Encrypt X with your private key" means "X^D mod N" which is how RSA signatures work. In the context of RSA-based cryptosystems, it's clearer to just say "signed".

Second, the ghsign library uses the `RSA-SHA1` signer, which runs the message through SHA1 before signing it. The reason it does this is because "textbook" RSA (i.e. RSA on arbitrary messages) is vulnerable to chosen-plaintext attacks.

1 comments

This is an invaluable comment — thank you.