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Comment by u801e | Hacker News Reader

> Good god, if you don't care about the project enough to not sign a piece of paper and scan it.

Wouldn't it make more sense to sign an agreement form with one's GPG private key rather than having to show a physical signature?

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Lawyers and judges don't understand GPG. Your silly hacker shenanigans don't hold up in court. Or maybe they will, but it's a gamble.

Yes, it's a creaky, old system, but that's how it works: with paper and signatures and old, wrinkly men sitting on benches deciding your fate based on their incomplete understanding of modern technology.

> Lawyers and judges don't understand GPG.

As I mentioned in another comment, having an expert witness testify about public/private keys, PKI, "Web of Trust" should be sufficient in court.

Alternatively, passing legislation that gives a digital signature prima facie status in court would work as well.

Passing legislation or bringing in expert witnesses (and risk having their testimony being questioned) are all harder than just appeasing the old, wrinkly guys sitting on the benches.

> Alternatively, passing legislation that gives a digital signature prima facie status in court would work as well.

All US jurisdictions already have such laws (in virtually all states, the same law—UETA—has been adopted, and E-SIGN is the federal law.)

Foreign jurisdictions may or may not have laws with similar effect, though I suspect they are pretty common by now, at least in the developed world.

There's a difference between "electronic signatures" and "digital signatures" [1]. I was referring to digital signatures, but, from what I've read and understand, the laws you cite refer to electronic signatures.

[1] https://www.assuresign.com/electronic-signatures-vs-digital-...

Digital sigbatures and electronic signatures are, to be sure, different things (you can digitally sign something without, for instance, any capture of intent to be a legal signsture) but, digital signatures are also a means of achieving a valid electronic signature as defined in those laws.

Obviously, people selling centralized document storage and electronic signature services are incentivized to obfuscate this as much as possible.

> digital signatures are also a means of achieving a valid electronic signature as defined in those laws.

If that's the case, then why does the FSF require scanning a printout with a physical signature (as one commenter mentioned) instead of opting for a digital signature of that document?

Does case law pertaining to the laws you cited support the assertion that digital signatures have the same legal meaning as an electronic or physical signature?

> If that's the case, then why does the FSF require scanning a printout with a physical signature (as one commenter mentioned) instead of opting for a digital signature of that document?

I dunno, ask the FSF what their reasoning is. Among the numerous plausible explanations is that they are concerned about laws in some non-US jurisdictions, or that they haven't expended resources examining other options.

> Does case law pertaining to the laws you cited support the assertion that digital signatures have the same legal meaning as an electronic or physical signature?

I didn't assert that case law made digital signatures equivalent to electronic signatures (in fact, I explicitly pointed to one way in which it is possible for a digital signature to fail to meet the similar requirements in UETA and E-SIGN for an electronic signature.)

For some reason, I don't see a reply link for your most recent post [1].

> I didn't assert that case law made digital signatures equivalent to electronic signatures

You're correct; I didn't read your original response carefully enough. Also, the comment [2] that stated that the FSF does indeed allow for digital signatures (in the US at least) definitely settles the issues and answers my original question.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14824452)

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14823665

> Lawyers and judges don't understand GPG. Your silly hacker shenanigans don't hold up in court.

Presumably, lawyers and judges will understand state (notably, UETA, in all but three states) and federal laws (notably, E-SIGN) governing the use and validity of electronic signatures.

> Presumably,

Are you erring on the side of legal caution? 'Cause I assure you the FSF is.

This has been available for contributors in the United States for some years now, and I've used it to sign the assignment documents in the past. It might not be available in all countries though.

> If you use GPG, you can sign your assignment using a detached signature in the following manner:

> gpg -a --detach-sig ASSIGNMENT

> Where ASSIGNMENT is the PDF file(s) as you have received it from us.

> Then simply email the assignment, key ID, and signature file back to us at assign@gnu.org. Please make sure that your key is listed on a public keyserver.

I'm actually surprised that no one mentioned this sooner. It's too bad that this isn't an option for most other legal documents that one has to submit in a lot of situations.

Well played, sir. Given the nature of FSF's business you'd think they'd be on the cutting edge of digital identification and authentication. GPG keys a thousand times better at properly identifying an owner than an easily forged pen-and-paper signature.

For that matter, why not have a blockchain assignment process? Given what a vanguard for technology FSF used to be it's a shame to watch it devolve at the pace of bureaucracy.

> Given the nature of FSF's business you'd think they'd be on the cutting edge of digital identification and authentication.

The FSF is very careful about the legal system. Signed paper contracts are a robust legal technology. When something important happens, they don't want a judge to be distracted by unfamiliar things.

edit: they also have digital signing in a couple of different forms.

https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/fsf-now-offering-paperle...

Would that be valid in a court? Because I believe that's where these papers are going to be used at.

It would be a matter of checking if there's any judicial precedent for digital signatures. If not, then an expert witness explaining the principles behind public/private keys, PKIs (how they're used in industry to verify the authenticity of servers), and how it compares to the "web of trust" model in terms of verifying authenticity and how it applies to FSF contributors.

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