Electronic Authentication Of Legal Research

Any revolution of science and technology may cause changes of the law and economy. So is the same with the production and development of information technology. The popularization and extension of computers and the Internet provides physical foundation for the further development of economy. More and more economic activities are being completed on the Internet. And the network economy has become an economy form that can bring a lot of tremendous economy advantages through being a fictions area. More and more businesses are being done in the form of EDI and what we usually call "Electronic commerce" and other forms in international trade. And theses forms use methods of storage and communication which differs from the traditional methods that are based on paper. The rapid progress of modern IT and network economy brings hope for both the increase of economy and the development of society. But it also brings a lot of new problems to the society. The present legal systems can not deal with these new problems, for the presence of the network economy leads to concussions and challenges to it. So it becomes necessary to use network laws to regulate these activities."Electronic signature" means data in electronic form in, affixed to or logically associated with, a data message, which may be used to identify the signatory in relation to the data message and to indicate the signatory's approval of the information contained in the data message. Both parties may not see each other in the process of transaction in the EC. It is very difficult to use traditional signature for this business based on network. Problems as how to make the offer and acceptance have the reliability and how to make the party who breaches of faith to bear the liability when he does not carry out the obligation in the contract, are involved in theaffirmation of the identity of the parties who participate in the transaction. Electronic signature can identify the identity of the message sender and the credibility and integrality of the electronic data, and it is unique for each sender and each sent message. The use electronic signature can confirm this two things: one is that it can assure the message is signed by the right person and prevent the signatory from denying, the other is that it can conform that the message has not been modified since it was sent.Electronic signature is associated with electronic authentication. Electronic authentication is a credit service and it is also a contract.Electronic authentication means a service that is based on encryption technology, electronic signature, digital certificate, digital digest and so on, which are to be used to identify the signatory and the credibility and integrity of the document. Electronic signature shows the identity of the signatory in technical means. It is used to protect the security of the data message and make sure that the data message would not be modified and disaffirmed. The reason why the law regulated electronic authentication is that the law confirms the technology which accords with the functions of the signature, actually it is the cognizance of the technical standard and it has an objective. It is impossible for the electronic signature technology to resolve the problems of the certainty of the public key and the possibility of the private key holders denying the signed document. That is to say that the credibility of private key holders is very important. There are two circumstances to think about: one is that the holders deny the activity intently, the other is that the key was stolen, lost or discrypted. So it needs an authoritative third party to make electronic signature which can be used to identify the identity of the parties and the credibility and integrity of the document throughout transaction. And this is the so-called certificate authority.This means that any authorities that issue certificate can becalled certificate authority. But in this article it has a special meaning. It refers to the authority that issues certificate to the us...