A digital signature is intended to be verified just like a usual signature on paper for reasons such as authentication and data integrity.
From the main menu, choose "Privacy > Verify" to enter this screen. Once entered, you will be presented with a form to enter necessary data to verify:
This is where you can paste or load data to verify; for detached signature verification, load the original document that was signed here
If you are verifying a detached signature, use this to specify a file that contains the signature; otherwise, this is used as an output file to save the extracted document
Choose verifying method (only verify, verify and extract, or verify detached signature); this is chosen according to the type of signatures you received
On the toolbar, there are two buttons --
and
.
button is used to clear out
the form if you do something wrong and want to start over.
is used to start the verification process after you
have filled out the verification data form. You will need
the public key of the signer on your keyring. If you do
not have the signer's public key on your keyring, you will
not be able to verify the signer's signature.
Once the verification is done, you will be told if the verification is successful. If extraction is selected, the output will be saved into a file if you have specified one. At the same time, the output will also be sent to the data area.
When no output file is specified, the extracted data is only temporarily stored in memory and not persistent. This maximizes your privacy by leaving no trace on your persistent storage media.