Distributed Digital Signature Validation Offloading Computation
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Lightweight devices such as mobile phones and tablets lack the processing power, storage capacity, and bandwidth to efficiently validate digitally signed electronic documents, which requires substantial CPU-intensive processes and large file transmissions, making it difficult to validate digital signatures quickly and securely.
Innovation Solution
A distributed validation system where a computing device generates a new digest of an electronic document and sends it along with the digital signature to a validation server, allowing the server to perform the validation without needing the actual document, thus offloading CPU-intensive tasks and reducing bandwidth requirements.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If digital signature validation is performed on lightweight devices, then authentication can be performed locally, but the device lacks sufficient processing power and bandwidth to handle CPU-intensive cryptographic operations and large file transmissions efficiently
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a validation server as an intermediary that handles the CPU-intensive cryptographic operations. The lightweight device only performs simple digest generation and transmits data to the server, which performs the heavy asymmetric cryptographic functions. This mediator approach allows authentication to occur without requiring the device to have substantial processing power.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts the computationally intensive validation operations from the lightweight device and places them on the validation server. Only the essential digest and signature data are transmitted to the server, which then performs the heavy cryptographic validation and returns results to the device. This extraction allows the device to maintain authentication capability while avoiding the burden of complex processing.
2Reliability
If the entire electronic document is transmitted to the validation server for verification, then complete validation can be performed, but substantial bandwidth is required which lightweight devices cannot provide
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential validation data (digest and digital signature) from the entire electronic document and transmits only these components to the validation server. The server validates the signature using the extracted data without needing to process the full document content. This extraction dramatically reduces the data transmission volume while maintaining validation accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the validation process into two parts: the lightweight device generates and transmits only the critical signature components, while the validation server handles the verification. This segmentation allows the system to validate documents without transmitting the entire document across the network, thus reducing bandwidth requirements.
3Ease of operation
If validation operations are performed on the device itself, then no network transmission is needed, but the device's limited resources are overwhelmed by CPU-intensive cryptographic processes
Solution Approach 1:
The validation server acts as an intermediary that receives minimal data from the device, performs the complex cryptographic validation, and returns results. This mediator approach maintains the convenience of local validation operations while shifting the computational burden to the server, preventing the device from being overwhelmed.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses a copy of the digest and signature data transmitted to the validation server for processing. The server creates and works with copies of the validation data without requiring the device to maintain or process the full cryptographic operations locally. This copying approach allows validation convenience while reducing the computational burden on the device.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods are presented for distributed validation of a digitally signed electronic document. A computing device accesses both a representation of the electronic document and a digital signature for the electronic document that includes a digest generated by the digital signature's creator by applying a one-way function to the electronic document. The computing device applies the same one-way function to the accessed representation of the electronic document to generate a new digest, and includes both the digital signature and the new digest in a request sent to a separate validation server. The request does not include the electronic document. The validation server generates validation results that depend on comparing the digest from the digital signature with the new digest, and that do not depend on having the electronic document available to the validation server. The computing device receives the validation results from the separate validation server.