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Robo-Arm Signatures Are Legal, Gov't Buys One
AndreV writes "It's endlessly comforting to know a recently designed and implemented long-distance robotic signing arm can produce signatures legal in both the US and Canada. The aptly named LongPen replicates the handwriting from a person writing in a remote location — with the unique speed, cadence and pressure of a human pen-stroke. It started as an idea from author Margaret Atwood to help free her from grueling, multi-city, multi-country book tours, but the hard stuff was done by a bunch of Canadian haptic gurus, whose design took into consideration many factors of the human arm and how we write. How it works: from the author-end, data protocols are set up, and the pen pressure is measured on a special tablet. The data streams to the robot, while algorithms smooth out all the missed points. Complex math operations were used to help the mechatronic limb repeat the hand's motions without unnecessary jerking, and programmers had to 'scale time' or 'stretch time' by breaking down the movements, essentially tricking the eyes into thinking the robot is writing fast. It was recently adopted by the Ontario Government to sign official documents. It helps criminals sign books, too."
is whether a handwriting expert can tell the difference.
How this handle security? If the signature is sent remotely, it is possible to store ones signature to reproduce it several times afterwards.
Robotic signature machines have been around for decades. Some of my colleagues at MIT worked on the first modern ones based on plotter technology in the late 1980s/early 1990s which were quickly bought by places like the US White House to sign letters.
A 5-second search on Google for "signature machine" comes up with 8 thousand hits. There's an autopen entry on Wikipedia indicating that mechanical signature machines have been around since the early 1800s (yes 1800s), and lists three current manufacturers of the devices.
So, this is news? Just because someone hooked up the recording part and the writing part across an internet connection and made them work in real time? That makes it to the front page? Is that really the first time it was ever done? Lots of other things have been done telerobotically already.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
Auto signature machines are not the same as long distance signature machines. It's also worth noting that mechanical signature systems are rarely used for sensitive data etc. (they're normally used on cheap merchandise etc. and hand writing experts can tell the difference between the mechanical version and a real signature)
The value of a signature is its difficulty to replicate. The historical cut off for this has been the talent and prevalence of expert forgers. Having automated forgers is quite irrelevant if they require more investment of time and effort to perform the same replication. (which would clearly be the case for this implementation, at least)
If anything, I would say the problem is that these machines are being underapplied. What they should *really* be used for is to create extremely complicated signatures a human being would not be able to accurately reproduce. Then for the first time in hundreds of years written signatures would become more secure.
(Granted, only until someone develops a machine that can reverse-engineer them, but at that point human-written signatures would have been even less helpful.)
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
These have been around for hundreds of years I believe. We just now can send them longer distances.
Living in Chile
Using robotic arms to sign official documents? In Spain we use rubber stamps.
Where is the 'whatcouldpossiblygowrong' tag?!
And obviously someone that doesn't understand why people obtain signatures.
A signed copy of a book can increase it's value but when you consider how many book signings they do these days, it's pretty meaningless, at least for the near future.
People get autographs for the same reason they take pictures with celebrities. To have some sort of proof they met the celebrity.
With digital cameras so readily available and portable, I'm surprised people are still looking for autographs (other than to sell on ebay).
With book tours, people don't just want their book signed, they want to have their 15 seconds to talk to the author.
Dual Opteron < $600
They're using the system to do video-conference book-signings. You still get your 15 seconds, and you still get a personal signature. The only difference is that the author doesn't have to travel, and doesn't have to smell you.
How is this any different from the "telautograph" machines common in the 1950s? As a kid I was fascinated by one I saw in a New York hotel that was used to allow a manager in one location to remotely sign documents in another. Heaven only knows that technology it used, but my vague memory is that it looked like an X-Y version of an analog, galvanometer-type pen recorder.
Click, click, Google: Wikipedia has an article on the Telautograph which mentions that "The telautograph was first publicly exhibited at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago."
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With book tours, people don't just want their book signed, they want to have their 15 seconds to talk to the author.
Realistically, I suppose I'd be more likely to head down to the book store to see the weird robotic arm signing books than to talk with some random author I've never heard of.
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
Right, if only we had some sort of inexpensive way of signing a document, and then producing some sort of copy of that document at a different location, in a relatively short period of time. You know, some sort of facsimile device that could use some sort of transmission medium...I don't know, we could call it a "telephone line"...to transmit data that could tell a second facsimile device on the other end of the line how to reproduce a document. Too bad... We'll just have to go with the robotic arm. I wonder if it comes with a secondary robotic arm to hold the paper still...
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
You're right. I remember seeing a long-distance handwriting machine at an airport 50 years ago, where someone in a remote city was writing messages to our city -- I think about the weather and flight delays. (I assume they could also have used teletype.)
And Harry Truman was the first president to use an Autopen to reply to constituent letters.
Yes, because it's such a hard life jet-setting around, waving at adoring fans hopeful that you'll scribble something in their copy of a $24.99 book turning it into a priceless artifact of literature all the while being paid huge amounts of money for it.
Only a modern human would be lazy enough to want to automate being famous.
I hate printers.
"I saw this in a movie about a bus that had to speed around the city, keeping its speed over fifty. And if its speed dropped, the bus would explode! I think it was called... 'The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down.'"
My understanding is that under US law, anything intended by the signer as a signature legally qualifies as a signature. That includes, but is not limited to standard signatures, electronic signatures, press seals, wax seals, visible fingerprints, etc. Now, this leaves open the question of weather a given mark is intended as a signature, and if so, what the signature is intended to mean. The signature may mean that I have seen and agreed to the contents, that I have seen the contents, that I am the author of the contents, or quite a few other things.
Now, the law will in some cases require specific types of signatures for some things, such as a true written signature, but not always.
For example for online trademark filing at the USPTO, the signature is any textual entry of the submitter's choice, as long as it begins and ends with the forward slash character. The USPTO considers that just as binding as a "normal" signature on a paper form.
In the same way, a PGP signature on a textual contract could be considered valid, subject to validity of the signature itself according to the OpenPGP standard.
For the record, IANAL.
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