Discussing this with friends, we pondered the advantages of university degrees being cryptographically signed. If universities were created today, the idea that

Discussing this with friends, we pondered the advantages of university degrees being cryptographically signed. If universities were created today, the idea that they would only use paper (or a scan) to certify a degree is laughable. The process of verifying a degree is complicated - each university has a different system and the costs can be far from non-zero. This discourages employers from doing the checks. The impact is far more than just "well we hired him/her and it didn't work out" - counterfeit degrees can be terrifying. Allen Ezell, a former FBI agent, notes that there are thousands of faked medical degrees[1]. Even in the case that the employee does a fine job, exposing a faked degree later can destroy their career from that point forward. Yes, there are potential issues that go along with this idea (certificate revocation in the case of a compromised key, proper implementation of the system, etc) but even a flawed system would be far better than today given so very few degrees are certified by employers. It should be as simply as attaching a link to your signed degree in your resume. [1]: http://freakonomics.com/2012/07/30/freakonomics-goes-to-college-part-1-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/ http://freakonomics.com/2012/07/30/freakonomics-goes-to-coll...