German Government Introduces Digital Signatures

bertvl writes: "From this article on CNN: Germany's federal government is introducing electronic signatures for its employees, a step it hopes will help make the security procedure generally accepted in the country. More than 200,000 employees of ministries and agencies will be able to sign electronic documents using a chip card with an encrypted key, giving them the same legal weight as paper documents with a handwritten signature, the federal Cabinet said in a statement Thursday."

Comments

Bypassing the system

[God Takeru]

Oh, that's nice. Now, instead of having to pay the government to make laws I like, I can just pay someone to crack their digital signature.

A technically savvy government?

[Sobrique]

Ok, so what's the betting that these 'chip card signers' get used as coffee mats by 95% of of the people who they've been given to? :)

How can you trust the chip card?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only way to be sure is to raise the hashed message to the proper power modulo p*q in your head.

Interesting illustration . . .

[servasius_jr]

According to the article's illustration, the Germans will digitally sign their names by writing a long, free-floating string of binary in the air with an ordinary pencil. Evidently the technology being used is both more advanced and more bizarre than anything I've ever seen.

Re:German Teen Introduces Digital Signatures Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think a German Teenager needs a fake id to buy porn or beer, nobody asks for it in the first place unlike in the "land of the free" where you get id'd even if your 35.

Re:Germany

[swoswo]

There's a lot of debate currently on whether the Reichstag (the German parliament) should switch to linux.

'scuse me, but Reichstag was the name of the German parliament in ancient days. The current parliament is called Bundestag. To make the confusion perfect, the Bundestag is sitting in a building called Reichstagsgebäude (Reichstags Building).

Re:That's final proof..

[swillden]

now they set up official documents for simple forged signatures

Care to describe the method by which these signatures can be forged? Doing so will grant you instant fortune and fame...

Haven't they figured out that the UK and USA have been reading all their secrets since 1942?

Shhh... don't tell them the Enigma was broken. If they find out they might switch to a better encryption system.