Re: Electronic signatures (was: Paperless in Peoria)

[doug montalbano <doug_montalbano -at- CC -dot- CHIRON -dot- COM>]

     On 1/27/95 9:42 AM, Karen Kay <karenk -at- NETCOM -dot- COM> replies that it is much
     easier to forge an electronic signature than a normal one, if you know how.
     She goes on to ask:

       .... But you're telling me this has all been settled? Amazing,
       considering the amount of trouble some ISPs are having with forging
       of e-mail.

     It depends on what you mean by settled.  According to the FAQ from
     the USENET newsgroup sci.crypt, the NIST (Natl Bureau of Stds), a
     proposed Digital Signature Standard should be capable of "proving
     to a third party that data was actually signed by the generator of
     the signature."  The US GAO is of the opinion that digital sigs
     will meet legal standards of handwritten ones.  The FAQ points out,
     though, that the validity of digitally-signed documents has yet to
     be proven or even challenged in a court of law.

     My company (a biotech firm) is interested in this issue, so that we
     may proceed to validatable electronic batch production records.

     (The entire cryptography FAQ may be obtained by FTP from
     rtfm.mit.edu from /pub/usenet/news.answers/cryptography-faq/rsa/)

     Doug_montalbano -at- cc -dot- chiron -dot- com