This document discusses digital signatures, including their history, purpose, and how they work. Digital signatures provide authentication, integrity, and non-repudiation for electronic documents by using public key cryptography. A digital signature is generated by encrypting a hash of a message with the sender's private key. Anyone can verify the signature using the sender's public key, ensuring the message came from that sender and was not altered. Challenges include keeping private keys secure and the processing time required, but digital signatures enable secure e-commerce and e-governance applications.