[8069] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Schneier: Why Digital Signatures are not Signatures (was Re:
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John David Galt)
Fri Nov 17 03:22:52 2000
Message-Id: <3A147F6E.B74BBCF@diogenes.sacramento.ca.us>
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 16:44:30 -0800
From: John David Galt <jdg@diogenes.sacramento.ca.us>
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obfuscation@beta.freedom.net wrote:
> The insecurity of digital signatures pales when we realize how little
> security there is in the rest of the world. Handwritten and electronic
> signatures are no more secure than digital ones.
Either would be better than nothing.
As the US banking system (and especially the bank clearinghouses controlled
by the Federal Reserve system) has gone electronic, all the banks I know of
have stopped bothering to verify the signatures on checks, and similarly
those on credit- and debit-card drafts. Getting them to start using digital
signatures would be a big improvement over the current wide-open situation.
The governors of the Fed appear to be the only people in a position to start
implementing such a fix. Do any of them even feel it's their problem?
