Digitally signed transcripts

Abstract

Every year, millions of college transcripts are printed and sent through the postal system. These transcripts could be sent almost instantaneously by email with virtually no cost. However, e-mail is generally viewed as an insecure medium of exchange, allowing others to intercept messages and possibly modify their content. The purpose of this research is to develop a method to send transcripts securely over the internet using digital signatures. Digital signatures have successfully been used to validate the authenticity of electronic documents, software, and e-mails. A digital signature is created by applying a private key, known only to the document creator, to the document, which ensures the integrity of the contents. As long as the transcript has been digitally-signed, even if it is sent over an insecure medium such as e-mail, the receiver can be confident that the transcript itself is secure. The focus of this project is to create a system that will read in student transcript information, generate a document, apply a signature, and transmit the secured document to the intended receiver.