5 ms·

Japan has also relied on traditions like using a seal called a hanko to sign contracts. https://www.nippon.com/en/news/fnn2020042836711/ https://www.nippon.com/

Japan has also relied on traditions like using a seal called a hanko to sign contracts. https://www.nippon.com/en/news/fnn2020042836711/ https://www.nippon.com/en/news/fnn2020042836711/ Covid is forcing many of these companies to transition to electronic signatures like Docusign.

jacquesm 6y ago
What could possibly go wrong? Let's all use an online service that is perfectly positioned make it seem like someone signed a document when in fact it is about as valid as a 'card not present' credit card transaction. Electronic signatures should have a lower level of trust than those performed in front of notaries and other officials. There is no way to check for coercion and many other ways in which the signature would normally be invalidated.
- acqq 6y ago
  > Electronic signatures should have a lower level of trust than those performed in front of notaries and other officials. Exactly. The level of trust of the electronic signatures should be as low as it can be, as computer security is really, really hard, especially outside of military settings: it should only be used to prevent the flood of login attempts and to allow to get or submit some less critical information, not to be legally equivalent to notarized signatures. Unfortunately some administrations swallow the propaganda of the companies selling the electronic signatures and promote them as "solving everything" then they are "surprised" that the citizenship is skeptical. And we know how unreliable "Certificate Authorities" are, and how hard it is even for big and very rich companies to maintain their certificates. It's not that the cryptography behind the signature is the problem: it's everything around that is the problem that needs a lot of care.
- jfoster 6y ago
  What are the ways in which a signature would normally be invalidated? (and how do you check for coercion?)
  - luckylion 6y ago
    You make the person sit in front of a notary, he confirms their identity and reads them the document they are about to sign (to make sure they know what they sign) and then confirms that they personally and voluntarily signed. Of course, you can only check for immediate coercion. You can make sure nobody has a gun to their head, but you can hardly check that nobody has a gun to their children in the car outside, or their brother that lives on a different continent.
  - magicsmoke 6y ago
    If you're coerced into signing a contract, you can always breach it later and when sued for breach of contract bring up evidence of coercion. Courts will not enforce contracts signed under coercion. At the end of the day, a contract is just a piece of paper and your signature is just some ink. Contracts only have power if courts enforce them. (At least for private entities. International law and sovereign entities are a whole other ballgame)
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      Proving coercion or lack thereof is hard. If it wasn't everybody and their brother would weasel out of contracts unfavorable to them. Well, not everybody, but still, plenty of people would.
- eru 6y ago
  Signatures by hand are not really about security. It's more a signal to really take a contract serious.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    The better ones are done in front of notaries and they check your identity pretty thoroughly before you sign. They also countersign and keep copies. So for anything really important use that.
    - eru 6y ago
      To an extent. They could just have you stand in front of the notary and swear (after the notary checks your identity), for similar effect and security. The signature is only a small part of the whole procedure. In most routine transactions, it really only shows everyone involved that This Is Serious. As a little experiment, I once looked up the legal ramifications of 'faking' your own signature. Ie signing with a signature that's completely unlike your normal signature. Or changing your signature around every day.
- dependenttypes 6y ago
  We have just fine ways to perform electronic signatures. GPG and signify come to mind. It is really weird how companies opt in for clearly inferior technologies.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    They do neither guarantee that the person in question signed (only that someone performed the signature with their private key, which they may have stolen) nor that coercion wasn't in play.
    - dependenttypes 6y ago
      Sure, and both are much better than the existing solutions that have the same issues and more (such as some random party forging a signature in a physical paper, or Docusign lying).
- fiblye 6y ago
  Use of a hanko implies that you're acting on behalf of the owner of that hanko. If someone signs a paper with your name, you can say someone forged your signature and prove that your writing is different. If someone fraudulently uses your info digitally, you can get them to pull up IP records and other various digital fingerprinting info to prove it's not yours. If your name is stamped, you're kind of boned. It's not an uncommon thing for people in Japan to be divorced without even knowing it. Their spouse secretly grabs their hanko for 5 seconds to do a quick stamp, goes to the city office alone, hands in the divorce form with both names stamped, and it's finalized. There's actually a separate form called a fujuri todoke that you can do in advance to block these one-sided divorces, showing that the whole stamping system is flawed if you need to do separate forms to block potential events of it being used without your knowledge. Nearly anything works better than stamps.
- upofadown 6y ago
  Then why not just get the notary to sign the transaction after questioning the signer in person? The issue of coercion has nothing to do with the medium used for signing.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
flocial 6y ago
As a matter of fact this tradition of hanko is holding back many companies from telecommuting since they rely on getting hanko from the chain of management for critical and frankly some trivial internal decision making.

jacquesm 6y ago

What could possibly go wrong? Let's all use an online service that is perfectly positioned make it seem like someone signed a document when in fact it is about as valid as a 'card not present' credit card transaction. Electronic signatures should have a lower level of trust than those performed in front of notaries and other officials. There is no way to check for coercion and many other ways in which the signature would normally be invalidated.

acqq 6y ago
> Electronic signatures should have a lower level of trust than those performed in front of notaries and other officials. Exactly. The level of trust of the electronic signatures should be as low as it can be, as computer security is really, really hard, especially outside of military settings: it should only be used to prevent the flood of login attempts and to allow to get or submit some less critical information, not to be legally equivalent to notarized signatures. Unfortunately some administrations swallow the propaganda of the companies selling the electronic signatures and promote them as "solving everything" then they are "surprised" that the citizenship is skeptical. And we know how unreliable "Certificate Authorities" are, and how hard it is even for big and very rich companies to maintain their certificates. It's not that the cryptography behind the signature is the problem: it's everything around that is the problem that needs a lot of care.
jfoster 6y ago
What are the ways in which a signature would normally be invalidated? (and how do you check for coercion?)
- luckylion 6y ago
  You make the person sit in front of a notary, he confirms their identity and reads them the document they are about to sign (to make sure they know what they sign) and then confirms that they personally and voluntarily signed. Of course, you can only check for immediate coercion. You can make sure nobody has a gun to their head, but you can hardly check that nobody has a gun to their children in the car outside, or their brother that lives on a different continent.
- magicsmoke 6y ago
  If you're coerced into signing a contract, you can always breach it later and when sued for breach of contract bring up evidence of coercion. Courts will not enforce contracts signed under coercion. At the end of the day, a contract is just a piece of paper and your signature is just some ink. Contracts only have power if courts enforce them. (At least for private entities. International law and sovereign entities are a whole other ballgame)
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    Proving coercion or lack thereof is hard. If it wasn't everybody and their brother would weasel out of contracts unfavorable to them. Well, not everybody, but still, plenty of people would.
eru 6y ago
Signatures by hand are not really about security. It's more a signal to really take a contract serious.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  The better ones are done in front of notaries and they check your identity pretty thoroughly before you sign. They also countersign and keep copies. So for anything really important use that.
  - eru 6y ago
    To an extent. They could just have you stand in front of the notary and swear (after the notary checks your identity), for similar effect and security. The signature is only a small part of the whole procedure. In most routine transactions, it really only shows everyone involved that This Is Serious. As a little experiment, I once looked up the legal ramifications of 'faking' your own signature. Ie signing with a signature that's completely unlike your normal signature. Or changing your signature around every day.
dependenttypes 6y ago
We have just fine ways to perform electronic signatures. GPG and signify come to mind. It is really weird how companies opt in for clearly inferior technologies.
- luckylion 6y ago
  They do neither guarantee that the person in question signed (only that someone performed the signature with their private key, which they may have stolen) nor that coercion wasn't in play.
  - dependenttypes 6y ago
    Sure, and both are much better than the existing solutions that have the same issues and more (such as some random party forging a signature in a physical paper, or Docusign lying).
fiblye 6y ago
Use of a hanko implies that you're acting on behalf of the owner of that hanko. If someone signs a paper with your name, you can say someone forged your signature and prove that your writing is different. If someone fraudulently uses your info digitally, you can get them to pull up IP records and other various digital fingerprinting info to prove it's not yours. If your name is stamped, you're kind of boned. It's not an uncommon thing for people in Japan to be divorced without even knowing it. Their spouse secretly grabs their hanko for 5 seconds to do a quick stamp, goes to the city office alone, hands in the divorce form with both names stamped, and it's finalized. There's actually a separate form called a fujuri todoke that you can do in advance to block these one-sided divorces, showing that the whole stamping system is flawed if you need to do separate forms to block potential events of it being used without your knowledge. Nearly anything works better than stamps.
upofadown 6y ago
Then why not just get the notary to sign the transaction after questioning the signer in person? The issue of coercion has nothing to do with the medium used for signing.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

flocial 6y ago

As a matter of fact this tradition of hanko is holding back many companies from telecommuting since they rely on getting hanko from the chain of management for critical and frankly some trivial internal decision making.