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Comment by bonyt | Hacker News Reader

The PDF format supports this, at least Adobe Reader can validate a signed PDF if it's signed in a certain way[1]. I know DocuSign does this - and Reader even has a little button to view the signed version (embedded in the PDF, I think)[2]. [1]: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/desktop/e-sign-documents/man... [2]: Example in Adobe Reader: https://i.moveything.com/1cf1e4ea5619 (redacted partly by me)

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Signing PDFs digitally is kind of a pain, though. There are several different standards, compatible with different readers, and you need to pay up to get a trusted certificate or Adobe will stick a huge "THIS DOCUMENT WAS SIGNED BY AN UNKNOWN PARTY" banner across the screen when you open it. And then you need to opt into the services of a timestamp server to validate your signature or your document might be marked untrusted when your certificate expires.

It's a better technical solution but unfortunately it's not as simple as you'd hope it to be.

Yes it is not perfect. At least in Lithuania you can use government issued personal ID to sign PDFs that pass Adobe/Foxit checks of signature authenticity. Trusted timestamp is part of a valid signature as it allows to check validity of signee certificate at the time of signing.

Adobe says: Source of Trust obtained from European Union Trusted Lists (EUTL). This is a Qualified Electronic Signature according to EU Regulation 910/2014.

Foxit says: Source of Trust obtained from European Union Trusted Lists (EUTL). This is a Qualified Electronic Signature according to EU Regulation 910/2014.

I remember a case in a different jurisdiction where a judge dismissed a digitally signed document with an argument they aren't a party of PKI system and don't have a key, so they can't do anything. This stuff is weird.

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