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From: Alexander Batischev on 3 Jul 2010 14:50
On Fri, Jul 02, 2010 at 01:52:47PM -0500, Arthur Machlas wrote:
> I just recently setup encrypted mail for my personal mail account,
> using icedove and enigmail. I'm curious about a general feature of
> "signing" the email. Why can't I just copy the "signature" portion of
> the email, which many people on this list attach to their posts, and
> paste it at the bottom of a fake email? Appreciate any comments or
> links you may have.
Well, in previous replies all your questions were answered, so I decided to
provide a link which may help you to make digital signing and encryption more
clear to you. Here it is - "Gnu Privacy Guard (GnuPG) Mini Howto (English)"[1].

1. http://dewinter.com/gnupg_howto/english/GPGMiniHowto.html

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Regards,
Alexander Batischev

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From: Aaron Toponce on 11 Jul 2010 10:50
On 07/02/2010 12:52 PM, Arthur Machlas wrote:
> I just recently setup encrypted mail for my personal mail account,
> using icedove and enigmail. I'm curious about a general feature of
> "signing" the email. Why can't I just copy the "signature" portion of
> the email, which many people on this list attach to their posts, and
> paste it at the bottom of a fake email? Appreciate any comments or
> links you may have.

In a nutshell:

* The sender's PGP/GPG hashes the text of the message. Because every
message will be different, every hash from the text will be different.
* The sender's PGP/GPG then encrypts the hashed string using your
private key, and attaches the message to the mail as a "signature".

The mail is then sent, at which:

* The receiver's PGP/GPG uses the sender's public key to decrypt the
signature, to get to the hash.
* The receiver's PGP/GPG then re-hashes the email using the same
algorithm the sender uses.
* If the hashes match (the newly created hash, and the decrypted hash),
the signature is valid. If they don't match, the signature is invalid.

That's why you can't paste a single signature to every email you send.
It has to be generated every time.

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