4 ms·

Are there potential security concerns here? I know not many people use handwritten letters any more, but this potentially gives this company a complete sample

Are there potential security concerns here? I know not many people use handwritten letters any more, but this potentially gives this company a complete sample of your handwriting, which they can then use for whatever purpose they want.

PuffinBlue 10y ago
If you give it a try you'll see it doesn't work well and it's nothing like cursive or 'natural' handwriting. The sheet you have to fill in changes your natural handwriting fairly dramatically (it did for me at least).
- ProfChronos 10y ago
  Did the same for me too, seems logic if you look at the limited "data sample" they can analyze with the sheet you fill in
- elcapitan 10y ago
  Because in cursive writing, the letters are connected - that's something that works in high quality, high effort script fonts. They way they do it is to use OpenType replacement features for various combinations of letters. For example, there are a bunch of a's in one font, and when the OpenType system detects a+n, it chooses the a that is drawn to connect with the n. There also may be different versions of the letters, so that the text gets more rhythm (like naturally written). It would actually be an interesting machine learning application not only to recognize letters from an actual sample (say a document in cursive writing), but also to understand how the letters connect and then create a cursive font based on that.
- shivsta 10y ago
  Yeah, i was thinking that they should have a different template pdf where the letters are not shown in the boxes, but perhaps beside or underneath the boxes. When you're writing over those typed letters, you're more likely to trace them, resulting in a less natural handwriting.
TheRealPomax 10y ago
true commercial handwriting fonts are already way more advanced than this. https://medium.com/message/how-to-tell-when-a-robot-has-written-you-a-letter-701562705d59 https://medium.com/message/how-to-tell-when-a-robot-has-writ...

PuffinBlue 10y ago

If you give it a try you'll see it doesn't work well and it's nothing like cursive or 'natural' handwriting. The sheet you have to fill in changes your natural handwriting fairly dramatically (it did for me at least).

ProfChronos 10y ago
Did the same for me too, seems logic if you look at the limited "data sample" they can analyze with the sheet you fill in
elcapitan 10y ago
Because in cursive writing, the letters are connected - that's something that works in high quality, high effort script fonts. They way they do it is to use OpenType replacement features for various combinations of letters. For example, there are a bunch of a's in one font, and when the OpenType system detects a+n, it chooses the a that is drawn to connect with the n. There also may be different versions of the letters, so that the text gets more rhythm (like naturally written). It would actually be an interesting machine learning application not only to recognize letters from an actual sample (say a document in cursive writing), but also to understand how the letters connect and then create a cursive font based on that.
shivsta 10y ago
Yeah, i was thinking that they should have a different template pdf where the letters are not shown in the boxes, but perhaps beside or underneath the boxes. When you're writing over those typed letters, you're more likely to trace them, resulting in a less natural handwriting.

TheRealPomax 10y ago

true commercial handwriting fonts are already way more advanced than this. https://medium.com/message/how-to-tell-when-a-robot-has-written-you-a-letter-701562705d59 https://medium.com/message/how-to-tell-when-a-robot-has-writ...