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I’m not a lawyer, but generally when dealing with contracts, the actual “signature” that’s on the “paper” is somewhat inconsequential. Sure, it’s convenient for

I’m not a lawyer, but generally when dealing with contracts, the actual “signature” that’s on the “paper” is somewhat inconsequential. Sure, it’s convenient for record keeping, and easy to defend in a court of law, but it’s not the be-all, end-all of consent to a contract. If you make a good faith effort to convey to a contract participant what is at stake in the contract, (perhaps by writing it out in the form of an NDA) and the intended participant does something to imply consent, like splashing ink on the paper in the spot where it says “by putting ink on this spot I agree to the terms”, or clicking an equivalent button, the participant can be held to the terms regardless of what shape the ink or the pixels make. In terms of defending your contract in court, this can be another matter entirely. If you don’t have some proof that the participant did actually acknowledge the terms of the contract and consent to the terms willfully, you will find it difficult to enforce the contract. Depending on the method used for “signing” the NDA, using a burner alias likely has little to no legal difference from actually signing with real name and subsequently flaunting the NDA in the same manner. However, in terms of getting away with it, the burner alias might be enough to throw off the opponent. No point accusing an anonymous stranger of breach of contract… they need to be deanonymized first to affect damages. If you can’t deanonymize me, you can’t affect damages to me, regardless of what I sign.

shp0ngle 5y ago
The author of this blogpost is, however, not anonymous, so de-anonymizing is fairly easy, no?
- blamazon 5y ago
  Seems like it. So, in this case in a legal sense, I believe there to be basically no difference to signing with an alias vs signing with real name, particularly since they blogged about doing this.
  - kadoban 5y ago
    Would some kind of clean hands argument potentially stop this NDA from being enforceable though?
- onionisafruit 5y ago
  Is somebody claiming to have signed a contract on a blog post significant evidence that they actually signed it? Can you say “one of these 1000 signatures is probably his pseudonym but I don’t know which one” and have it stand up in court? Of course it falls apart if the author is compelled to answer in court whether they signed. Then it comes down to whether they are willing to debase themselves by lying.
  - Talanes 5y ago
    She said her writing sample was a snippet pasted from one of her novels, so the information to de-anonymize her is there.
    - onionisafruit 5y ago
      I didn’t think about that part (apparently my reading comprehension is bad enough that I also used the wrong pronoun for the author). Assuming Main actually saved the writing samples and does the work to match them all against the author’s novels, then she should be able to pin it down. It will be interesting if we get to see what damages she sues for. If she is willing to lie she could still say somebody else signed the nda and forwarded her the information to post. I wouldn’t do that personally, but I also wouldn’t think unkindly of somebody who did.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
    The author of this blog post is probably prepared to risk it, on the assumption that the people that they are writing about really don't want to be in court testifying under oath on this matter.
- celticninja 5y ago
  Not if they cannot connect the poster with a NDA signed by an alias.
mountainb 5y ago
Contract is by and large a state law issue and many states have statutes that look askance at format deficiencies and expect signatures to be formatted in certain ways. The judge also has to be able to understand the contract as written to rule on it, so a contract of a smudge would be hard to enforce. Signing a false name on a contract is fraud. It is different. They would have trouble doing anything if they could not serve you because they didn't know who you were. But if you used an online service to sign the contract, they could serve the company who facilitated it demanding they reveal your identity and doxx you that way.

shp0ngle 5y ago

The author of this blogpost is, however, not anonymous, so de-anonymizing is fairly easy, no?

blamazon 5y ago
Seems like it. So, in this case in a legal sense, I believe there to be basically no difference to signing with an alias vs signing with real name, particularly since they blogged about doing this.
- kadoban 5y ago
  Would some kind of clean hands argument potentially stop this NDA from being enforceable though?
onionisafruit 5y ago
Is somebody claiming to have signed a contract on a blog post significant evidence that they actually signed it? Can you say “one of these 1000 signatures is probably his pseudonym but I don’t know which one” and have it stand up in court? Of course it falls apart if the author is compelled to answer in court whether they signed. Then it comes down to whether they are willing to debase themselves by lying.
- Talanes 5y ago
  She said her writing sample was a snippet pasted from one of her novels, so the information to de-anonymize her is there.
  - onionisafruit 5y ago
    I didn’t think about that part (apparently my reading comprehension is bad enough that I also used the wrong pronoun for the author). Assuming Main actually saved the writing samples and does the work to match them all against the author’s novels, then she should be able to pin it down. It will be interesting if we get to see what damages she sues for. If she is willing to lie she could still say somebody else signed the nda and forwarded her the information to post. I wouldn’t do that personally, but I also wouldn’t think unkindly of somebody who did.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
  The author of this blog post is probably prepared to risk it, on the assumption that the people that they are writing about really don't want to be in court testifying under oath on this matter.
celticninja 5y ago
Not if they cannot connect the poster with a NDA signed by an alias.

mountainb 5y ago

Contract is by and large a state law issue and many states have statutes that look askance at format deficiencies and expect signatures to be formatted in certain ways. The judge also has to be able to understand the contract as written to rule on it, so a contract of a smudge would be hard to enforce. Signing a false name on a contract is fraud. It is different. They would have trouble doing anything if they could not serve you because they didn't know who you were. But if you used an online service to sign the contract, they could serve the company who facilitated it demanding they reveal your identity and doxx you that way.