Financial department wanted me to turn in a signed document after lockdown. I have an HP 3 in 1 but it no longer prints. So I scanned my signature, extracted it with gimp, and added it to the document. The result was excellent.
Show HN: FalsiScan – Make it look like a PDF has been hand signed and scanned
171–180 of 191 posts
Re: Show HN: FalsiScan – Make it look like a PDF has been hand signed and scanned
#172I don't get the magical power of a signature at all. Everybody can write my name under a document. This project basically allows you to forge your own signature. Is it still legally binding? Do these rules even remember the original intent?
Forging signature is crime, that's why signature has magical power.
Re: Show HN: FalsiScan – Make it look like a PDF has been hand signed and scanned
#173I don't get the magical power of a signature at all. Everybody can write my name under a document. This project basically allows you to forge your own signature. Is it still legally binding? Do these rules even remember the original intent?
> Do these rules even remember the original intent? You are describing bureaucracy. There are plenty of people who work (and live) by rules that no longer make sense, but hey, they're the rules!
Just because something can be forged doesn't mean it's useless. Signature in isolation doesn't mean anything, the surrounding legal environment is what gives it its powers. That legal environment doesn't operate on boolean logic, but on probability theory. Signature is just an input to that.
Re: Show HN: FalsiScan – Make it look like a PDF has been hand signed and scanned
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Do these rules even remember the original intent? You are describing bureaucracy. There are plenty of people who work (and live) by rules that no longer make sense, but hey, they're the rules!
Just because something can be forged doesn't mean it's useless. Signature in isolation doesn't mean anything, the surrounding legal environment is what gives it its powers. That legal environment doesn't operate on boolean logic, but on probability theory. Signature is just an input to that.
Agreed, rules exist for a reason, and good changes are planned and executed safely over time..
But there's still a delta of time during which old rules continue to be applied in a manner that can feel senseless, while new processes are figured out. :-)
Re: Show HN: FalsiScan – Make it look like a PDF has been hand signed and scanned
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
The act of marking the sig field shows your intent to bind to the contract. You can digitally sign but there are a couple extra steps to confirm the intent and identity that aren't hard but are just hard enough to make DocuSign a lot of money and leave everybody else to print/sign/scan their stuff.
The willingness or need to enforce seems to correlate with the measures a company requires you to take on signing. * TOS - a simple checkbox - or even just a "continue button" * Moderately large purchase - type your name * Larger purchase - draw your name * Major contract - use this widely recognized signature flow
Life-or-death contract - write out 2048-bit DSA private key from memory; no, you cannot import a key file instead
Re: Show HN: FalsiScan – Make it look like a PDF has been hand signed and scanned
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Again, my question: > fax machines were purely analog devices, not a scanner attached to a modem Why would an analog scanner not still be a scanner? I'd call whatever component that's in even the oldest fax machines "a scanner." Even if it is "enitrely analog" (continuous brightness intensity read, like a tape head or record-player stylus) you'd still call the process of converting light from a sensor passing over a…
Yes, in the same sense that an analog telephone is recording you by translating your voice into electricity. But, at least to me, if it is voice -> electricity on wire -> speaker, it feels much less like recording than saving a buffer of voice in memory, packetizing, and then sending, even if they are both just electricity on a wire.
Everything has Colour, not just bits
Re: Show HN: FalsiScan – Make it look like a PDF has been hand signed and scanned
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
> national ID smart card National ID systems are an incredibly bad idea. You can already get the entire authentication benefit from using decentralized ID systems (your bank authenticates you with your bank card, your employer authenticates you with your employee ID), so all a national ID adds is the ability for corporations to correlate all your different identities without your knowledge or consent, which is nothin…
It's interesting to see a mention of the ability "to correlate all your different identities" as a feature, which probably illustrates fundamental conceptual differences in different legal/social systems. In European continental civil law (as opposing to common law e.g. USA and UK, as far as I understand UK law) there's no such legal concept as "different identities" or legal aliases - you have one identity, and that…
You have to realize that the entire concept of "identity theft" comes from having centralized identity to begin with, otherwise there is nothing to "steal".
Suppose you want to take out a mortgage on a house. If you take it out in someone else's name, this is a problem. But suppose that didn't even enter into it. Instead you prove title to the house, i.e. you authenticate to the city title office as owner of that property using the authentication method you established when you bought it, and that proves to the bank that you own the property. You, having authenticated to the city, approve the bank to take a lien out on the house. They accept the lien as collateral for the mortgage loan, and you get a mortgage loan. Your name doesn't enter into it at all, so nobody could use your name to take out a loan. If you don't pay the loan, they don't care one bit what your name is, they just foreclose on your house.
Re: Show HN: FalsiScan – Make it look like a PDF has been hand signed and scanned
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
The act of marking the sig field shows your intent to bind to the contract. You can digitally sign but there are a couple extra steps to confirm the intent and identity that aren't hard but are just hard enough to make DocuSign a lot of money and leave everybody else to print/sign/scan their stuff.
So you're saying the signature itself is irrelevant? It's just an elaborate checkbox? The question then is how do you prove I was the guy who checked the box?
That's what a notary does; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notary
Re: Show HN: FalsiScan – Make it look like a PDF has been hand signed and scanned
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's interesting to see a mention of the ability "to correlate all your different identities" as a feature, which probably illustrates fundamental conceptual differences in different legal/social systems. In European continental civil law (as opposing to common law e.g. USA and UK, as far as I understand UK law) there's no such legal concept as "different identities" or legal aliases - you have one identity, and that…
You have to realize that the entire concept of "identity theft" comes from having centralized identity to begin with, otherwise there is nothing to "steal". Suppose you want to take out a mortgage on a house. If you take it out in someone else's name, this is a problem. But suppose that didn't even enter into it. Instead you prove title to the house, i.e. you authenticate to the city title office as owner of that pro…
You realize there is a centralized identity here: The house, or whatever identifies it e.g. street and number.
Also, as a counterpoint, most countries have much stronger centralized identities than the USA, and much less trouble with identity theft.
Re: Show HN: FalsiScan – Make it look like a PDF has been hand signed and scanned
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
The willingness or need to enforce seems to correlate with the measures a company requires you to take on signing. * TOS - a simple checkbox - or even just a "continue button" * Moderately large purchase - type your name * Larger purchase - draw your name * Major contract - use this widely recognized signature flow
Life-or-death contract - write out 2048-bit DSA private key from memory; no, you cannot import a key file instead
The moment you write out the private key it's no longer secure. Anyone who sees it (and has a good enough memory) could copy the key to another contract.
You'd need to perform the DSA algorithm in your head on the content of the contract, using your memorized private key, and write out the resulting signature block.