Anarkali digitally signs a message and sends it to Salim. Verification of the signature by Salim requires (A) Anarkali’s public key. (B) Salim’s public key. (C) Salim’s private key. (D) Anarkali’s private key.

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Solution

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Official answer: A) Anarkali’s public key.

Principles of Layering

In asymmetric cryptography and digital signature schemes:

The sender (Anarkali) signs the message (or its hash) using her own private key, which only she possesses.
Any receiver (Salim) verifies the digital signature using the sender's (Anarkali's) public key, which is openly available.

Therefore, verification of the signature by Salim requires Anarkali’s public key (Option A).

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This Principles of Layering previous year question is Q23 of the GATE CSE 2016 Set 2 paper. Find more GATE CSE PYQs on Principles of Layering in Computer Networks, or browse all GATE CSE PYQs.

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Principles of Layering in GATE CSE

Principles of Layering has 12 GATE CSE PYQs across 10 papers from 2011 to 2025. 9 of them are 1-mark MCQs like this one, and it is the only one in GATE CSE 2016 Set 2.

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Independent practice explanation verified by the GateAI team. GATE is conducted by the IITs; question text follows the official paper.