Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!apple!usc!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!sci.ccny.cuny.edu!phri!roy From: roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript Subject: Re: signatures in PostScript Keywords: PostScript signatures bitmaps cleverness Message-ID: <1991Feb26.022149.28846@phri.nyu.edu> Date: 26 Feb 91 02:21:49 GMT References: <431@heaven.woodside.ca.us> Sender: news@phri.nyu.edu (News System) Organization: Public Health Research Institute, New York City Lines: 22 stanley@phoenix.com (John Stanley) writes: > If they are good enough, how do you tell a digitized signature from a > Xerox copy of a real one? Laser printers are, after all, fancy copy > machines. If the signature is obviously digitized, then it is of no value, > as the customer will see that and know you couldn't even be bothered to > sign the original. And yet, faxed signatures seem to bear legal weight. I've dealt with lots of vendors who would not ship goods on a verbal PO, but were happy to with a faxed one (a Purchase Order is technically a legally binding contract which obligates us to pay for the specified goods). A faxed signature is obviously digitized, yet nobody seems to mind. It wouldn't be very hard for me to concoct a bitmap image of a fake PO with a digitized signature of our controller using MacPaint or some such and send it off with a fax modem in the Mac on my desk. This scares me, as I suspect that most people who routinely send and receive signed legal documents have no idea how easy they are to forge. -- Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy "Arcane? Did you say arcane? It wouldn't be Unix if it wasn't arcane!"