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3D Holograms Detect Fake Signatures
Roland Piquepaille writes "Several sources reported last week that a new technique that produces 3D holograms of handwriting could be used to detect fake signatures on checks, credit card receipts or other important handwritten documents. Here are pointers to Nature, Scientific American or BBC News Online. Instead of using 2D techniques to look at the sequence of pen strokes in a signature, this new method is based on 3D micro-profilometry which permits to translate the writing into an image showing dips and furrows of the sample so that anomalies can be detected. If you plan to imitate your spouse's signature, beware! Forensics have a new and very efficient tool. As an example, for the use of ballpoint pens on normal paper, the success rate was 100%. You'll find more details, references and pictures in this overview."
When I was at IBM yorktown Heights, the guy in the next lab over built a pen that had piezo acclerometers and pressure trnasducers built in. You got the time and pressure curves of the 2-d signature as it was signed. IBM never marketed it.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
So obviously we all press down to the same intensity and the curves of our writing remain the same all the time! Screw signatures off soon it will all be done with biometrics. thumb print obtained & verified you are who you say you are.
This is amazing, although I'm surprised by the fact that it isn't already in use *today*! Detectives already have known that when you write on paper, it creates a depression in paper. If you're writing on a note pad, for instance, and after you write your address on the sheet above of a bank holdup note, just lightly rubbing a pencil against the hold up note will reveal the address, the one written on the sheet above the bank holdup note, all because pressure created an indentation in the paper. Plus I do believe people sometimes check when they get rewards, certificates, etc.. to see if the signature is really hand-made, or printed, just by feeling the back for an indentation suggesting that someone was writing on the paper.
Ah, you found me!
What about the electronic signature pads in use at many stores, well, everywhere? I used to work at a 7-11, and I can tell you firsthand that the resolution *SUCKS* on these things. Nevermind that they don't take pressure readings. When we first got them my manager signed it with her real name, then "Micky Mouse". I couldn't tell the difference. It'd still be useful for things traditionally signed on paper (insurance policies, etc..), but as far as debit and credit transactions the majority (and a growing number of) of transactions will be unverifiable by this method.
E pluribus unum
and i can barely read my own signature!
seriously, i sign hundreds of documents every day. what happens when i can't replicate my own writing?
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
I sign my wife's name all the time, and she sometimes signs mine. All perfectly legal, as long as neither one disputes it.
Simply claim you have power of attorney from your spouse. If, when asked, your spouse says "yes, I gave my permission", you're clear.
Of course, you better be DAMN SURE your spouse is going to back you up.
"yes, he did. Same way he gave me permission to sign his name on the check buying the mink coat..."
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
a video of me performing the signature as well as paper samples
I remember watching some signature-detection algorithm on BBC (program was QED actually) a while back which involved a fine grid on which you sign with a touch-pen. The hardware was pretty standard, like the pad which the UPS delivery guy carries around. The algorithm recorded which pixel was toggled (pressed) at what time; it compared this time-delay information to a known good signature time sequence, adjusting for spatial and temporal offsets. And then of course it also did a standard pattern-match between the final signatures. The advantage was that it could easily detect your normal signature from a slowly forged one, even if the end results looked identical. As I recall, it did not give *any* false positives at all under the test runs, but it did reject your own signature a little too often for it to be used widely.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
The system is ancient but wide open to abuse. Several years ago a woman returned from holidays to discover that she had been married to her workmate. He had simply obtained all the paperwork, stamped it with his own seal and then having taken hers from her drawer, stamped it with her seal as well. The marriage was anulled, but the point is the personal seal is a little dangerous in my opinion.
Anyway, as a result, very few people I know in Japan has what I would call a signature, that is something that you write almost the same way each time. My own signature varies each time I write it an in fact has shrunk over the years, but always contains elements that appear to be hard wired into my hand and brain now. Even if I use a different grip, or even the wrong hand, the pattern is similar (thought obviously different). When my students try to sign something, they usually very neatly write their name in English.
Reminds me of the time a cow-orker of mine was locked out of the server room for a week because he cut his finger and couldn't use the fingerprint scanner while it healed. :)