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The question is, can you forge your own signature? If both parties agree that the document is legally binding it seems a bit unlikely that the document would fa

The question is, can you forge your own signature? If both parties agree that the document is legally binding it seems a bit unlikely that the document would fall under the forged label. Though I am not a lawyer. It's also worth noting that digital signatures throughout the european union have legal status.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Digital signatures also have legal status in the US. Until society catches up and uses cryptographic primitives provided by a national ID smart card (such that Estonia has) for authorizing intents, this is a satisfactory method to make document execution less painful. This project is already doing the easy part (“place pretty signature picture here”). Depending on your jurisdiction and their tolerance, you could also render a true crypto signature in ascii-armored format to assist in proving legitimacy (perhaps generated as a small print signature line under the signature). Sidenote: Some transactions require a "wet" signature (as in, actual ink on actual paper from an actual pen). This doesn't get around those transactions unfortunately.
- zo1 7y ago
  All the more baffling why some countries are moving away from national identification and other digital signing initiatives to prove identity. E.g. the UK that introduced and then subsequently dismantled a national ID card and database (apparently it was a "privacy" issue for the government to have a record of citizens?). Imagine this, a first world country, living in the dark ages essentially when it comes to identity.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    If you support national ID systems, please do your part to advocate for such systems whenever possible (as well as the necessary privacy and oversight controls). Progress is a function of effort. I'm working on the US side.
  - michaelt 7y ago
    > (apparently it was a "privacy" issue for the government to have a record of citizens?) That's because there's a 95% chance they'll sell it to the likes of Equifax and Experian - what minister could resist the temptation to 'make the system pay for itself' while 'reducing fraud' and 'working with the private sector' - and a 100% chance one of them will then lose it in a breach.
  - VBprogrammer 7y ago
    Just for what it's worth, a big part of the backlash against the national ID is that firstly we have a couple of decent proxies, for example driving licence and passport, and secondly we were being asked to pay for the privilege.
  - minikites 7y ago
    Many people in the USA believe a "national ID" card is the work of actual Satan: https://countdown.org/en/entries/features/national-id-cards-and-mark-beast/ https://countdown.org/en/entries/features/national-id-cards-... >These ID cards are, however, preparing the way. The more people get used to some new government regulation, restriction, or provision, the more they tolerate it and eventually just learn to live with it. What may at first seem unthinkable and raise howls of protest, later becomes accepted by a few, then many, then most. And that’s how the Antichrist and his agents will capitalize on these compulsory ID cards to prepare the world for what’s next.
    - fastball 7y ago
      I think "many" might be overselling it a bit relative to a population of ~330M.
      - minikites 7y ago
        People who believe that have incredible influence in our flawed political structure.
      - CamperBob2 7y ago
        Translation: Hi, I'm from New York or California, or maybe Seattle.
        fastball 7y ago
        Huh? There are a lot of devout Christians in the US. The vast majority of them are not "end-times" truthers.
        CamperBob2 7y ago
        The ones with political power are. It is exceedingly naive to claim otherwise. Google the term "Dominionism."
        7y ago
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  > national ID smart card National ID systems are an incredibly bad idea. You can already get the entire authentication benefit from using decentralized ID systems (your bank authenticates you with your bank card, your employer authenticates you with your employee ID), so all a national ID adds is the ability for corporations to correlate all your different identities without your knowledge or consent, which is nothing but a privacy-invasive misfeature. Note that without a centralized ID they could still do it with your knowledge and consent by having you authenticate using multiple decentralized IDs. Centralized identity is also a huge single point of failure and compromise. It would attract far higher resources from attackers than non-monoculture ID systems do, have far reaching consequences when vulnerabilities are discovered, and take far longer to respond when changes are necessary because of the scope of use.
  - fastball 7y ago
    I think you're forgetting the part where those existing so-called "decentralized" ID systems are by-and-large using a centralized system (your SSN) which is magntitudes worse than a cryptographic card. Your bank knows that you are the same John Smith as your employer has on record, because you needed to use the same SSN for both. The status quo is that any service which requires identity validation is requiring you to provide your SSN, which in internet terms is like authenticating with only a username (no password) on all websites, AND you have to use the SAME username for every different site. Now compare that to public-key encryption. Not only is it better assuming you only have access to a single private key (because you are still authenticating with the output of the key, not the key itself as with SSN), but also because a cryptographic card could store MULTIPLE private keys, allowing you to authenticate with a different "identity" to different providers, making it impossible for them to cross-reference you in that way.
    - brewdad 7y ago
      You do need the SSN to match up with the name and other personal information like age, gender, address, etc. In that way, it's a bit like authenticating with a common username and a password that is publicly available with the username obfuscated (except in the case of data leaks).
PeterisP 7y ago
You seem to be conflating the two different, incompatible meanings of "digital signatures" here. This article is about digital signatures as in digital pictures of a signature. There's some support of them in, for example, some PDF tools. These do not have a legal status in EU. And there are "digital signatures" as in cryptographic digital verification of documents using private/public key cryptography. This is the type of digital signatures for which EU has a legal status, and in many countries a support for verifying identity - for example, I can cryptographically sign documents using the chip on my gov't ID card, and if I receive such a document, then I can securely verify the identity of the signer without needing any preexisting relationship with them. But this has nothing to do with the pictures of signatures that this article is talking about, that seems to be more like a USA thing.

toomuchtodo 7y ago

Digital signatures also have legal status in the US. Until society catches up and uses cryptographic primitives provided by a national ID smart card (such that Estonia has) for authorizing intents, this is a satisfactory method to make document execution less painful. This project is already doing the easy part (“place pretty signature picture here”). Depending on your jurisdiction and their tolerance, you could also render a true crypto signature in ascii-armored format to assist in proving legitimacy (perhaps generated as a small print signature line under the signature). Sidenote: Some transactions require a "wet" signature (as in, actual ink on actual paper from an actual pen). This doesn't get around those transactions unfortunately.

zo1 7y ago
All the more baffling why some countries are moving away from national identification and other digital signing initiatives to prove identity. E.g. the UK that introduced and then subsequently dismantled a national ID card and database (apparently it was a "privacy" issue for the government to have a record of citizens?). Imagine this, a first world country, living in the dark ages essentially when it comes to identity.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  If you support national ID systems, please do your part to advocate for such systems whenever possible (as well as the necessary privacy and oversight controls). Progress is a function of effort. I'm working on the US side.
- michaelt 7y ago
  > (apparently it was a "privacy" issue for the government to have a record of citizens?) That's because there's a 95% chance they'll sell it to the likes of Equifax and Experian - what minister could resist the temptation to 'make the system pay for itself' while 'reducing fraud' and 'working with the private sector' - and a 100% chance one of them will then lose it in a breach.
- VBprogrammer 7y ago
  Just for what it's worth, a big part of the backlash against the national ID is that firstly we have a couple of decent proxies, for example driving licence and passport, and secondly we were being asked to pay for the privilege.
- minikites 7y ago
  Many people in the USA believe a "national ID" card is the work of actual Satan: https://countdown.org/en/entries/features/national-id-cards-and-mark-beast/ https://countdown.org/en/entries/features/national-id-cards-... >These ID cards are, however, preparing the way. The more people get used to some new government regulation, restriction, or provision, the more they tolerate it and eventually just learn to live with it. What may at first seem unthinkable and raise howls of protest, later becomes accepted by a few, then many, then most. And that’s how the Antichrist and his agents will capitalize on these compulsory ID cards to prepare the world for what’s next.
  - fastball 7y ago
    I think "many" might be overselling it a bit relative to a population of ~330M.
    - minikites 7y ago
      People who believe that have incredible influence in our flawed political structure.
    - CamperBob2 7y ago
      Translation: Hi, I'm from New York or California, or maybe Seattle.
      - fastball 7y ago
        Huh? There are a lot of devout Christians in the US. The vast majority of them are not "end-times" truthers.
        CamperBob2 7y ago
        The ones with political power are. It is exceedingly naive to claim otherwise. Google the term "Dominionism."
        7y ago
AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> national ID smart card National ID systems are an incredibly bad idea. You can already get the entire authentication benefit from using decentralized ID systems (your bank authenticates you with your bank card, your employer authenticates you with your employee ID), so all a national ID adds is the ability for corporations to correlate all your different identities without your knowledge or consent, which is nothing but a privacy-invasive misfeature. Note that without a centralized ID they could still do it with your knowledge and consent by having you authenticate using multiple decentralized IDs. Centralized identity is also a huge single point of failure and compromise. It would attract far higher resources from attackers than non-monoculture ID systems do, have far reaching consequences when vulnerabilities are discovered, and take far longer to respond when changes are necessary because of the scope of use.
- fastball 7y ago
  I think you're forgetting the part where those existing so-called "decentralized" ID systems are by-and-large using a centralized system (your SSN) which is magntitudes worse than a cryptographic card. Your bank knows that you are the same John Smith as your employer has on record, because you needed to use the same SSN for both. The status quo is that any service which requires identity validation is requiring you to provide your SSN, which in internet terms is like authenticating with only a username (no password) on all websites, AND you have to use the SAME username for every different site. Now compare that to public-key encryption. Not only is it better assuming you only have access to a single private key (because you are still authenticating with the output of the key, not the key itself as with SSN), but also because a cryptographic card could store MULTIPLE private keys, allowing you to authenticate with a different "identity" to different providers, making it impossible for them to cross-reference you in that way.
  - brewdad 7y ago
    You do need the SSN to match up with the name and other personal information like age, gender, address, etc. In that way, it's a bit like authenticating with a common username and a password that is publicly available with the username obfuscated (except in the case of data leaks).

PeterisP 7y ago

You seem to be conflating the two different, incompatible meanings of "digital signatures" here. This article is about digital signatures as in digital pictures of a signature. There's some support of them in, for example, some PDF tools. These do not have a legal status in EU. And there are "digital signatures" as in cryptographic digital verification of documents using private/public key cryptography. This is the type of digital signatures for which EU has a legal status, and in many countries a support for verifying identity - for example, I can cryptographically sign documents using the chip on my gov't ID card, and if I receive such a document, then I can securely verify the identity of the signer without needing any preexisting relationship with them. But this has nothing to do with the pictures of signatures that this article is talking about, that seems to be more like a USA thing.