I'm trying to understand what a digital certificate is and why I need it to sign a document. I know in the following instructions I can create my own digital certificate for free, but when and how do I use a digital certificate to sign something? What is a digital signature in comparison to taking a picture of my signature and pasting it.
Thanks.
For example, I use my document signing certificate when I create PowerShell scripts, which adds a digital signature block with a hash to the bottom of my scripts.
This digital signature block does two things:
- It identifies me to the user running the script (if they don't trust me, they should not run the script), and
- It gives the user confirmation that the script has not been modified in any way (or the hash will not match).