Signing a value

gistfile1.py

from hashlib import sha1

# This is what we sign our values with
secret = '2q3j4q23ruas9fu28qu3rjsfia9uq23'

# This is the hash that we are going to pass to our user's e-mail
sent_hash = sha1()
sent_hash.update(os.urandom(60))

signature = sha1()
signature.update(secret + sent_hash.hexdigest())
# This is what we are going to store in our db or server-side session
stored_hash = signature.hexdigest() + sent_hash.hexdigest()

# Sent this to the user's e-mail
return sent_hash.hexdigest()


# Then once they click the link with the sent_hash, we'll get a request
# like www.example.com/verify?sent_hash=2352j3iofsd9u2q93risdfja90u309qr23rwjf.
# So we grab that sent_hash value, and make sure it matches our signature from before.

stored_hash = # Get from db
signature = sha1()
signature.update(secret + sent_hash.hexdigest())

if signature.hexdigest() == stored_hash[:40]:
    return True
return False