Conference back40::soapbox

 What's the problem with the Digi Pad?  Potential forgery?



 Jim

    	It can read your social security number off the microchip in
    	your hand...  ;^)

    <--- 8^)

I'd be interested to know what the problem is, too. I know
Sears has been doing it for the better part of a year. What
have I compromised?

    I'd mentioned this about a year ago, when I first encountered it
    in Service Merchandise.  At first I was very disturbed by it, but
    then I figured that given today's scanning technology, my signature
    is already easily copyable onto any document anyway.  As a result,
    the original inherent "value" of a signature has been just about
    eliminated.  Fraudulent use of signatures is probably fairly easy
    to fight in courts, given the widespread knowledge of today's
    technology.
    
    Since it's not worth anything anymore, the store dweebs can get
    their jollies scanning it and digitizing it until they work themselves
    into a frenzy.  In any event, resistance is indeed futile.  But I
    do like the idea of a special signature for credit cards; you'd have
    to sign the card the same way initially of course, to satisfy the
    checkout-clerk handwriting experts at Toys R Us (who never fail to
    amuse me with their careful visual examinations, which always seem
    to take several seconds, as if they know their supervisors are watching
    them, which is probably true).
    
    Chris

   I noticed that in France, one generally keys in a PIN when a credit
   card is used, rather than using signatures.  This was the case at
   all kinds of point of sale situations, (filling up with gas,
   at the supermarket, paying for rental car or hotel...)

   Since you can change a PIN, this is more secure in that respect.

   I'm more worried about this stuff I've seen here where you can "charge
   to your bank account", instead of to a credit card, for mail purchases
   and the like.  Isn't that a special convenience - NOT!

   At least with a credit card, you have some recourse if some clown
   gets your card number and tries to charge a bunch of stuff.  Now, with
   this EFT *right from your account*, you can be really screwed!

   I've already had to change a credit card number when somebody got ahold
   of the number somehow in a city I was on a business trip in the
   month before.  And another time, I was able to have the credit card
   company (Master Charge in this case) to deal with it, when a merchant
   added a thousands digit to a hundred dollar mail order purchase.

   - Jim

    Why don't you just get rid of your Visa? I personally wouldn't want to
    spend tax payers dollars on new laws to satisfy paranoid luddites.

    If you don't like it, use FRN's. 
    Otherwise bend over and use plastic or a check.  Read the small
    print on your credit agreement.  
    

    how do you sign for UPS deliveries, John?  They've been on digipads for
    several years now.
    
    DougO

    just a suggestion,
    
    all my credit cards, both of them!!, do not have a signiture on them,
    rather i have written in "verify with picture ID only
    
    later

    I've had to use these digitising pads on receiving packages from UPS
    and FedEx. They give you a plastic scribe and you"sign on a rubber pad 
    and it comes out in the LCD display. Try as I might, it looks nothing
    like my signature on paper, and even with a rather short EW Brown, I 
    usually run out of space on the small pad. I figure the weird looking
    sig is a plus, if they try to mis-use it, I can claim that it must be
    a forgery as it looks nothing like my "real" signature. 
    
    I suppose that the "thinkpad" and "Newton" palmtops would have
    difficulty translating my chicken scratches and heiroglyphics.
    
    

What purpose do these (digitized signatures) serve other than to provide
an immediate means of image capture without the paper trail? The only
use for them that I can think of is to prove delivery if there were
a contention that something hadn't arrived, or to prove that it was
(or wasn't) in fact the signee that charged the purchase..

    Just sign an X or scribble something witty if it really bothers you.
    
    

  My guess is that the purpose of the digitized signature at point of sale ter-
minals is to eliminate the need to keep a piece of paper with a signature,
which for the high volume of sales at a typical store could result in a large
volume of paper files.
  As was said a few replies back, the purpose of signing for UPS and the like
is to verify that "someone" received the package and that person was the right
one. For this purpose, the distorted signature that is stored on the digi-pad
is probably enough.
  Re forgery by making paper images of signatures: I always sign papers with
a ball point pen, not a felt tip. One reason is so that the signature makes
an impression on the paper. If someone were to show me a document with "my
signature" on it and there was no impression on the paper, I would have an
immediate reason (besides the signature not "looking right") to claim it was
a forgery.