Problems with cyber-signatures Re: Electronic Signature Legislation (Ubiquity, May 9-15, 2000)       [I am concerned about] the problems which may result from some of the new Trojan horse (viruses) which have been spotted in the wild. It seems that these relatively new Trojan horses are capable of allowing a second or third party to alter a document which has been, to quote, signed on the dotted line in cyberspace, without the repository person being aware that the document has been surreptitiously altered. With old-fashioned paper documents, alterations and forgery can be forensically determined, but if you really know your way around the digital world no data is concrete.       The Internet crosses many boundaries. For example, take the hypothetical case where an agreement is made with another party purportedly located in the same state, but where in actuality the sending address for the other party is in a different country with considerably different contract law. This could present an interesting conundrum. You undertake an agreement with the ABC Corporation, which is located only a few city blocks from you, but unknown to you the ABC Corporation is also incorporated in country "X" and that is where the digital certificates and signatures are located. Even without the Internet, during my many years as a multi-national, I have witnessed similar shrewdly put together operations. -- Paul D Lane

[Home]   [About Ubiquity]   [The Editors]