Ask HK: Are hand written signatures meaningless? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HK: Are hand written signatures meaningless?

34 pointsmnming21 comments

I don't know if it's just me dipping too much of my life in the digital world. I feel stupid whenever anyone ask me to use hand written signature to prove my identity.

My hand writing is exceptionally bad and inconsistent. My signature is different every time. I can't even tell if my signature was actually written by me. So, if there are people like me exist (presumably in good quantity), I wonder what is the point of recording signature to prove my identity?

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I think it's a ritual meant to convey that you intend to enter into a legally binding arrangement with someone, one of the requirements of a contract (eg, to establish that you aren't joking or being figurative about your agreement). I think the possibility of forensically analyzing it to prove your identity is secondary, if it's a consideration at all. Indeed, I've "signed" documents digitally where the software used a "signature" that was just a font, totally divorced from my handwriting & of no forensic value.

It's so that you can be asked "Did you sign this?" and you would be lying if you said no. And so that if someone else signs it in your name they are leaving evidence of fraud.

If someone else signs for you and you say it WAS you, I don't think the signature is going to be disputed. You can always say you just decided to sign it weird for some reason. In the opposite case, the forger is going to need to argue that you signed it weird, while you are going to say that you didn't sign it at all.

But that's how I think things are supposed to be.

I live in a strange country where signatures actually are compared by clerks and will literally reject your second signature if it doesn't look enough like the first, even when you signed both right in front of them.

Exactly. That’s why as an added layer of security signatures are witnessed.

Then they ask “did you sign this?” and the witness “did they sign this?”

It’s less an immediate authentication and more of a “record” of authentication that has to be validated by the person who signed.

> It's so that you can be asked "Did you sign this?" and you would be lying if you said no.

If you agreed to something verbally, and are then asked "did you agree to this?", you would also be lying if you answered with "no".

There’s usually no record of verbal “agreements”, and casual language is much more ambiguous than signing a document that literally says “I agree”.

Indeed: most laws governing mutual obligations accept verbal contracts just like any other contract.

Having them written down helps with disputes.

Signatures can be witnessed. For important documents, e.g. deeds, that is even a legal requirement (your jurisdiction may vary).

Even more universally, weddings.

Though they also serve there as witnesses that the person signing is indeed the actual person supposed to be wed :)

I don't think the signature is meant to verify that you are you.. Just like locks are not really to keep out thieves.

Signatures and locks are thresholds..

You knowingly, intently, explicitly and provable overstepping that threshold when you fake a signature or break circumvent a lock. That's the real value they provide.

The threshold raises the bar a little bit, it makes it require a bit more determination and activation energy, so it reduces the pool of potential criminals.

As others said it’s more of a legal step than actual security.

In the European country I live in, I have a verified digital ID, and I can use it to sign documents, verify credit card transactions and login to fill in forms for government services, effectively signing them too.

It’s nice but in practice the digital. Any small company or individual will use a signed document instead. It’s just easier and doesn’t cost money to implement.

Plus anything that actually verifies your identity probably means each signature/transaction is in a system owned by a government and operated by a vendor. It’s not trivial to convince all citizens in a country to start using something like that.

In essence a signature is all about intent. An X can be your signature or any type of mark. What matters is that you are marking your intention to enter an agreement.

You can ask your friend to sign your name for you. That is 100% your legally binding signature even though they drew it because of your intent.

Obama signed bills into law remotely using an auto pen while he was in Europe. That is 100% his signature because of intent. The DOJ wrote a compressive piece on this that goes into signatures in general much deeper: https://www.justice.gov/olc/opinion/whether-president-may-si...

While you may be right to some extent, signature bears some information like stroke patterns, pen-holding and such, which are usually distinctively personal.

Combine a few of these, and multiple of your signatures could probably be easily matched and verified even by a half-expert :)

But as highlighted by other poster (maxbond): it's a commitment, and as long as you are not willing to challenge it, any of your signatures is sufficient to indicate intent.

The bank we use for our business in Germany (Sparkasse) requires that we have our signatures on file with them. When we sign documents they check these signatures (most things seem to require us physically signing and mailing a letter to the bank).

So then what if the bank is not convinced that the two signatures match? What about people like op whose signature is inconsistent?

Depends on the clerk and if there are other possibilities to prove your identity. I once had to fill out a postal identification to prove my new (online) bank that I am the person trying to open an account. The clerk needed to check my identity, I showed my ID and had to sign as authentication, but as I have (like OP) no consistent signature, it took three attempts until it was accepted. But then I think, why do you not look at my ID? There's a picture of me in there!

Handwritten signatures are easy to forge. At this point, they are used mostly for cultural and historical reasons. They will be gradually replaced with digital signatures, once legal support is provided.

There are already companies that do that.

Would be great if companies could also get into the correct mindset. In Germany we have an electronic ID for more than ten years now, and everyone could prove his/her identity even over the internet. But there are very few companies supporting this, even now as more than 60% of all IDs have this functionality available (in the first years it was optional).

The companies STILL prefer that I wave my ID to a person on a videocall, then they read the ID and accept it. What an anachronistic and very analogue way. And this needs manpower and availability of it (so no opening accounts in the middle of the night).

While we are talking about signatures, it's relevant to raise elections. In Washington State we've had vote-by-mail for decades, and up until recently under the management of Republican secretaries of state (IE: bipartisan support).

In eastern Washington, counties are suppressing voters by discarding votes that they claim do not have a match to the signature card. The majority of these discarded votes are from Hispanic / latino voter (who in themselves are not a majority of the population). Before anyone objects - all studies on vote by mail have shown incredibly low rates of fraud - it's just not an issue. Likewise - ask a Washington voter when the last time they updated their signature card and they are likely to laugh - it's something you do when you register to vote and you forget about for decades. So yes, signatures really do matter as in our case it is absolutely being used to suppress voters.

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As a real estate agent, 99.999% of the signatures I deal with are digital. You can complete every signature in buying a home digitally, depending on payment method - ironically the banks still want real ink, but if you pay cash you can go digital. This is the only thing stopping the entire process from also happening in an entirely remote / online fashion.

In my country (India), there are quite a few people who are illiterate and cannot affix signature using pen on paper. The law allows them to affix a thumbprint.

A physical signature (or thumbprint) is a proof of intent. It can be witnessed. Some government documents require notarization (i.e., witnessed by a Notary public and signed/sealed) to lend the weight of genuinity.

As an aside, it is a bit of an irony that even literate folks today have to use their thumbprint to unlock their iPhone or Android cellphones :) So, it has come full circle.

First, You could fix this, You may even got some benefits, for example, Jobs learned calligraphy and used it in design of Apple computers.

Now handwriting is sign of very respectful person, successful and smart, so have spare time to learn art.

Also, it is just good for mind, because hands connected directly to neocortex, and when practice handwriting, You activate Your brain.

Second, handwriting is extremely individual, modern tech could measure strokes and this could be used as biometry, to prove authenticity. Even clone will have different pattern of strokes.

Activate Your brain with some hand activities, like handwriting is good to boost creativity.

BTW, current technology (Wacom, sensors of pressure, tilt and tip movement), from my exp is good enough, to make genuine digital signatures, and easy available.

I think, this is question of pursue for cheapness, why we don't use digital pens widely.

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