Digital Signatures 

Digital signatures will need to be used on the semantic web in order to verify that the data held on a page is reliable and correct. The structure of the semantic web will make it very easy for web creators to lie about the contents of their page in order to make them look more attractive to search engines. They will also be used to stop forgeries and other misuses of the web. Agents should be skeptical about information they read on the semantic web until they have have verified its sources. In order for them to be a success digital signature's will need to monitored and issued by a third party company or agency that will have to monitor all web content.

A digital signature is essentially an encrypted block of data that web users and agents can use to verify that data on this page comes from a trusted source. Windows XP currently uses digital signatures to check that new driver updates are reliable by checking for the Microsoft digital signature and then telling the user not to trust the drivers if the signature is not found. 

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