Quick Questions

[Guest Gladstone]

Why are signatures so legally binding? At the end of the end day it's an illegible scribble, something that anyone can mimic an yet it's used to complete massively important documents. In this day and age, why is there so much weight behind this?

Well what do you propose replaces it?

A lot of legal documents require a signature to be witnessed by an independent witness to verify its authenticity. That can obviously be forged as well but I can't see anyway other than using a signature for that type of thing.

Things like bank cards / credit cards have been updated with chip and pin and that seems a much more secure method than the squiggle on the receipt, but you can't exactly use chip and pin for signing a legal agreement. I can't think of a better alternative.

[Guest E.C]

Thank goodness nobody ever goes to Altens ever.

[fatboy]

I refused bank cards at my last work if they didn't have a signature, not valid unless signed. If any discrepancies came up it would come back to me if I had processed the card

[MC Nice Andrew]

Well what do you propose replaces it?

A lot of legal documents require a signature to be witnessed by an independent witness to verify its authenticity. That can obviously be forged as well but I can't see anyway other than using a signature for that type of thing.

Things like bank cards / credit cards have been updated with chip and pin and that seems a much more secure method than the squiggle on the receipt, but you can't exactly use chip and pin for signing a legal agreement. I can't think of a better alternative.

I wasn't proposing an alternative, just that its very backwards that important documents and agreements are bound to you by a quick scribble you invented, probably when you were very young. Would you not agree?

Say it is contested in court, and you deny your signature being a document which says you should pay a lot of money for what ever reason. The court then ask you to replicate your signature; you could create something that looks completely different and abscond yourself of association with the original signature.

Given, my hypothetical situation may not bear much resemblance to a real situation; are there any law students on here that could extinguish my juvenile query?

[Gypsum_Fantastic]

Don't you have to have witnesses, in some cases at least, i think for my phone contract there were no witnesses needed but probbaly CCTV, my lease had to have a witness though.

[Guest Gladstone]

No, you don't have to have a witness - that's not what I said. I said some legal documents do.

Things like phone contracts that just have a signature on them and no proof of how it was signed are certainly dubious, but there's no better way of doing it (other than having a witness). A witnessed signature on a contract (like a lease) will stand up in court even if you (as the signatory) stand up in court and say you didn't sign it. It would be up to you to prove that you didn't sign it. That would include bringing the witness to the stand - if the witness said they never signed it, then there would be issues.

Generally though, the system as it is works.

Of course there are forgeries, but on the whole, most things get signed and that's it. But, people's bank cards get cloned and used on the internet all the time, and used in shops etc as well. So, even the new systems aren't full proof - it's almost impossible to be full proof.

I think the only way to go better than having a witness to a document would be to film every single contract being signed, or have it signed in front of a solicitor or judge (who checks passports etc first) and the contract somehow gets recorded/lodged - but that would be ridiculously archaic and time consuming.

Although - here's an example from about an hour ago. I just opened up a bank account. The Bank manager took my passport as proof of ID, a utility bill as proof of address and I signed the form to open the account. I also provided a specimen signature which they will lodge. The kind of bank account it is, I need to physically go to the bank to take money out, and I'll need to sign for it. I presume they will have my specimen signature on a screen or something to look at when I sign to take money out.

[Spoonie]

Say it is contested in court, and you deny your signature being a document which says you should pay a lot of money for what ever reason. The court then ask you to replicate your signature; you could create something that looks completely different and abscond yourself of association with the original signature.

That would depend on the nature of the document. In banking, you can't just get a loan with a signature, you need to provide a variety of forms of ID to become a customer, or prove that you're a customer already through a verification process. These provide additional safeguards. With payday loans and the like, you often don't have anything to sign, as it's done over the phone and your call is recorded as the record of the agreement.

In terms of changing signatures, it's natural that these will change as you get older, but you can go into your bank at any stage and change the signature they hold on file, subject to being ID'd.

[Captain America]

No, you don't have to have a witness - that's not what I said. I said some legal documents do.

Things like phone contracts that just have a signature on them and no proof of how it was signed are certainly dubious, but there's no better way of doing it (other than having a witness). A witnessed signature on a contract (like a lease) will stand up in court even if you (as the signatory) stand up in court and say you didn't sign it. It would be up to you to prove that you didn't sign it. That would include bringing the witness to the stand - if the witness said they never signed it, then there would be issues.

Generally though, the system as it is works.

Of course there are forgeries, but on the whole, most things get signed and that's it. But, people's bank cards get cloned and used on the internet all the time, and used in shops etc as well. So, even the new systems aren't full proof - it's almost impossible to be full proof.

I think the only way to go better than having a witness to a document would be to film every single contract being signed, or have it signed in front of a solicitor or judge (who checks passports etc first) and the contract somehow gets recorded/lodged - but that would be ridiculously archaic and time consuming.

Although - here's an example from about an hour ago. I just opened up a bank account. The Bank manager took my passport as proof of ID, a utility bill as proof of address and I signed the form to open the account. I also provided a specimen signature which they will lodge. The kind of bank account it is, I need to physically go to the bank to take money out, and I'll need to sign for it. I presume they will have my specimen signature on a screen or something to look at when I sign to take money out.

Thumb print.

[Guest Gladstone]

Thumb print.

That probably wins all arguments.

I might change my signature to "Captain America for Prime Minister"

[MC Nice Andrew]

No, you don't have to have a witness - that's not what I said. I said some legal documents do.

Things like phone contracts that just have a signature on them and no proof of how it was signed are certainly dubious, but there's no better way of doing it (other than having a witness). A witnessed signature on a contract (like a lease) will stand up in court even if you (as the signatory) stand up in court and say you didn't sign it. It would be up to you to prove that you didn't sign it. That would include bringing the witness to the stand - if the witness said they never signed it, then there would be issues.

Generally though, the system as it is works.

Of course there are forgeries, but on the whole, most things get signed and that's it. But, people's bank cards get cloned and used on the internet all the time, and used in shops etc as well. So, even the new systems aren't full proof - it's almost impossible to be full proof.

I think the only way to go better than having a witness to a document would be to film every single contract being signed, or have it signed in front of a solicitor or judge (who checks passports etc first) and the contract somehow gets recorded/lodged - but that would be ridiculously archaic and time consuming.

Although - here's an example from about an hour ago. I just opened up a bank account. The Bank manager took my passport as proof of ID, a utility bill as proof of address and I signed the form to open the account. I also provided a specimen signature which they will lodge. The kind of bank account it is, I need to physically go to the bank to take money out, and I'll need to sign for it. I presume they will have my specimen signature on a screen or something to look at when I sign to take money out.

Ace, thanks very much for taking the time to respond to my question in such depth. I am now wiser.

[Spoonie]

Another problem with that would be digitising it. A signature can lose some quality and still be clearly recognisable. If you're thumb printing everyone who opens a bank account, that's gonna either mean crap quality versions which you can't use, or a MASSIVE technology investment.

[keeno]

Thumb print.

Not fool proof either. Fingerprint readers are a pain in the ass at times. Dirty lenses/cuts/sweaty fingers as well as just moving a bit too fast can cause them to not recognise fingerprints. Non-capacitive ones can be fooled by a photocopy of an imprint and even capacitive ones could possibly fooled by a mould of a fingerprint. Plus you could always just chop off someones finger and use that as it just recognises the imprints of the skin.

Palm vein biometrics ftw. Don't need to touch the scanner and you need an intact blood supply. Been around for years so I'm surprised it's not more common now. I remember a school using them for kids to pay for lunches about 4/5 years ago.

http://blog.m2sys.com/health-care/the-rise-of-palm-vein-biometrics-for-patient-identification/ for a bit of info. I actually wrote an article for a science magazine about them and the only real problems were cost and the false acceptance/rejection rate was higher than fingerprint scanning but those were the very first models that came out so it should be much better now.

[Captain America]

Another problem with that would be digitising it. A signature can lose some quality and still be clearly recognisable. If you're thumb printing everyone who opens a bank account, that's gonna either mean crap quality versions which you can't use, or a MASSIVE technology investment.

Thumb print technology really isn't very expensive anymore it comes as standard on a lot of modern laptops (not even the high end ones).

Anyway that was just a solution to the problem it could be easily implemented and isn't too massively expensive. It's very secure as well.

[Captain America]

Not fool proof either. Fingerprint readers are a pain in the ass at times. Dirty lenses/cuts/sweaty fingers as well as just moving a bit too fast can cause them to not recognise fingerprints. Plus you could always just chop off someones finger and use that as it just recognises the imprints of the skin.

Palm vein biometrics ftw. Don't need to touch the scanner and you need an intact blood supply. Been around for years so I'm surprised it's not more common now. I remember a school using them for kids to pay for lunches about 4/5 years ago.

http://blog.m2sys.com/health-care/the-rise-of-palm-vein-biometrics-for-patient-identification/ for a bit of info. I actually wrote an article for a science magazine about them and the only real problem was the false acceptance/rejection rate was higher than fingerprint scanning but those were the very first models that came out so it should be much better now.

Hold on we're talking in replace of a signature here! Who's going to lop someones finger off, go in to sign for something and just rip a bloodied finger out of their pocket and everyone will just go "Oh yeah. That's not at all suspicious. I regularly whip out a thumb to sign for something supposedly as me with a thumb from my pocket!".

As for the other points of course there could be ways it might not match but there are going to be ways to get round everything. Cleaning the lense /sweaty fingers are as easy to solve as a chip not reading in a chip and pin machine. If there is a cut on their thumb use the other thumb? Or any of their fingers. Get them to give them all as references it wouldn't take that much longer when they register with the bank (or wherever).

[keeno]

Hold on we're talking in replace of a signature here! Who's going to lop someones finger off, go in to sign for something and just rip a bloodied finger out of their pocket and everyone will just go "Oh yeah. That's not at all suspicious. I regularly whip out a thumb to sign for something supposedly as me with a thumb from my pocket!".

As for the other points of course there could be ways it might not match but there are going to be ways to get round everything. Cleaning the lense /sweaty fingers are as easy to solve as a chip not reading in a chip and pin machine. If there is a cut on their thumb use the other thumb? Or any of their fingers. Get them to give them all as references it wouldn't take that much longer when they register with the bank (or wherever).

As usual I edited my post... "Non-capacitive ones can be fooled by a photocopy of an imprint and even capacitive ones could possibly fooled by a mould of a fingerprint" The chopping a finger off was an extreme example off the top of my head but I did refine the argument! Palm vein biometrics actually requires that persons live hand. You can't easily make a model of the distribution of the veins in someones hand and then pump fluid around it. I don't even know if that is possible to do accurately, if it was would take years. I reckon it would be possible to make a cast of a print though and be able to conceal it on your finger pretty easily so that bank staff wouldn't notice.

Fingerprint scanners will be cheaper (by how much I don't know) but if you want security this is a much better option. They wouldn't use it in hospitals if it wasn't!

[Captain America]

I'm not disagreeing that there are always ways around these things but for cost/uniqueness of the thing being used instead of a signature fingerprints are a very good solution.

[keeno]

I'm not disagreeing that there are always ways around these things but for cost/uniqueness of the thing being used instead of a signature fingerprints are a very good solution.

I'm not disputing fingerprints are a good solution for invaluable consumer electronics but for high value bank transactions a more secure method would be needed. In conjuction with a PIN I would support their use for the standard pay in a cheque/transfer a small amount of money transaction though.

[framheim]

Which phone should I get?

[Chris]

Which phone should I get?

HTC Sensation, Samsung Galaxy S2 or Sony Ericsson Experia Arc. But probably the HTC or Samsung.

[TR!ΔNGL€ T€€TH]

Which phone should I get?

You should get an iphone.

[Jaaakkkeee]

I still enjoy my iPhone 4. Nothing's went wrong at all. Dropped loads too and works fine. Signal never drops. Well decent. Apps are good and the os is perfect. Good quality videos and photos too.

[FOX]

I'd get an iPhone, but £500!?

[framheim]

i went for the samsung.

[Jaaakkkeee]

Cheaper with a contract.

[Soda Jerk]

I was recently shopping around for a new phone. None of the network phone shops recommended the iPhone, for some reason. I was looking into getting one, just because everyone seems to have one so thought they must be good... The chap in the Vodafone shop said "The iPhone is a fashion accessory for someone with more money than sense". The O2 and Phones4U shops didn't really have anything good to say about them either, so I got the HTC Desire S. It's pretty neat. Battery could last a bit longer, but I probably won't be using it enough for that to be a factor.

I like it when it's raining and the weather animation puts on the window wipers. Essential mobile phone feature.