Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!micor!isishq!testsys!doug
From: isishq!testsys!doug (Doug Thompson)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Paperless office
Message-ID: <542181945DN5.35B@testsys.uucp>
Date: Thu, 04 Oct 90 10:57:32 EDT
References: <9010031156.AA26927@encore.encore.com>
Distribution: na
Organization: SKAN Communications Inc., Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 87

In article <9010031156.AA26927@encore.encore.com> 
("Michael N. Davis") writes: 

> I don't know if the article mentioned this, but it seems to be an
> ongoing hindrance as well.  Anything that must be signed must be on
> paper.  Electronic copies of contracts, etc, are not binding because
> it is so easy to copy a signature onto another document electronically.
> How will this problem ever be resolved?

Think about banking machines, and bank cards. The combination  of a
bit of data on the black strip on your card and a 'secret' number
works for banks as a means of verification of the user's
authorization. And that is what a signature is, generally. Something
to prove that a certain person did in fact see and or authorize a
certain thing.

There are technologies which permit the equivalent of an electronic
signature on a document.

In the case of the banking machine, and a few other electronic
signatures, part of the security lies in the hardware. I.E. you type
your secret code at the bank's terminal. They know that the data (your
code) cannot have been diddled en route. This would not work with a
public transmission system like e-mail.

Public key encryption (about which I have a fair bit of info if you
are interested) and document encryption can create harder-to-forge
verification than a paper signature.

A paper signature is actually fairly easy to forge for an expert, and
the public post-office is not really all that secure (at least
sometimes) if someone really wants to read your paper mail. 

In other words,  the technology is there, if we care to spend some
time implementing it, to create a verification system for documents
which is AT LEAST as secure and reliable (probably a lot more so) than
current paper signatures.

Within some organizations, such means are already in use for internal
communications. 

General acceptance, however, will probably have to wait for more general
propagation of computers, since a  large proportion of the population
currently has no adequate access to computers. Everyone (except that
rather substantial proportion who are illiterate)  has access to
paper, and even the illiterate only need a literate friend to read and
explain documents,  and put their X. Literate friends are probably
still more generally accessible than computers :-).

> Will a paperless office ever exist?

I don't think so. I think my office is about as close to paperless as
they come. Well over 90% of all text material processed and utilized
is in electronic form, but as long as we interact with parts of the
world that are not computerized to the same standards as ourselves,
paper is needed. 

You can hand out paper copies of a proposal or a brochure at a
meeting. Handing out floppy disks (though sometimes it's a useful
adjunct) doesn't have the same effect. Even if everyone in the room
has access to a computer, those computers may use incompatible disk or
data formats and the computer may not be immediately handy.

If the day arrives when most people are using some common standard of
text data interchange between computers, I think you will see
invoicing and bill-paying done by computer. Public-key encryption and
today's e-mail could do it. Likewise contracts could be signed with
e-mail using those techniques.

One further issue arises. Regardless of the reliability factor of any
electronic invention for verification, the courts will still have to
learn to accept it. I think they will.

I think the biggest spur to the paperless office (or minimization of
paper) is e-mail. It is usually easier and cheaper, if you have a good
e-mail system available and your correspondent does too, to send text
data by e-mail than by FAX, regular mail, or courier. Because it's
cheaper and quicker, both in transmission time (often) and labour
required to generate the message (usually), business will have a
strong interest in using e-mail wherever it can, simply from the point
of view of communication costs.

FAX has been around since the 70s but only became really popular in
the late 80s.

=Doug

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{...} watmath!isishq!doug
doug@isishq.fidonet.org