Digital signature and automatic data processing

Today many services can be requested via network by sending an electronic message to the service provider. If the data is coded in syntax "understandable" to computers, it is possible to automate its interpretation, elaboration and storage, thus speeding up data processing and reducing human error. Digital signature can be associated with Internet messages in order to guarantee sender authentication, message integrity and non-repudiation of origin. The verification process of incoming digitally-signed messages is usually performed by the e-mail client, on behalf of the end-user. However, if digital signature is applied to data subjected to automatic elaboration, in order to maintain the abovementioned benefits it may be convenient to automate the verification process as well. The idea is to implement the verification process in the e-mail server rather than the client. In this paper we describe our experience designing and implementing software to automate the verification of digitally-signed messages and web forms in order to simplify the registration of Internet domains under the .IT Top Level Domain.