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."

Comments

The real question

[spiritraveller]

is whether a handwriting expert can tell the difference.

Re:The real question

[Kjella]

The real question is whether a handwriting expert can tell the difference.

Between the Robo-Arm signature on the document you intended to sign, and the Robo-Arm signature on the document you didn't? I doubt it.

Re:The real question

[jcr]

The workaround for that problem is to get a signature notarized, so that the signer can't disavow it. Same solution we've had for a long time before this technology came along.

-jcr

Re:The real question

[TheRedSeven]

Right, because Notaries Public are always scrupulous, have high standards and ethics training, and never notarize documents signed outside of their presence.

I have signed documents and later found that someone had them notarized without my knowledge. Legal? No. Does it happen? Without a doubt.

Write once, reproduce more

[piripiri]

How this handle security? If the signature is sent remotely, it is possible to store ones signature to reproduce it several times afterwards.

Re:Write once, reproduce more

[rackserverdeals]

Not only that, how do you know what you're actually signing if you're not there to read it in person?

You don't even need to figure out a way to store and reproduce it. Just through a piece of carbon paper under the document and have a second contract under it, or even just a blank sheet of paper to be filled out later.

Re:Write once, reproduce more

[bentcd]

How this handle security? If the signature is sent remotely, it is possible to store ones signature to reproduce it several times afterwards.

Signatures don't handle security, and it's a very very long time since they did. The robo-arm introduces nothing new wrt reproducing signatures that fax machines didn't already bring to the masses several decades ago.

I suspect that signatures, together with other low-security authentication mechanisms such as PINs and credit card numbers etc, are really only there so that when people do falsify or misuse them you can legitimately lock them up for various forms of fraud.

Note that in certain situations involving signatures, you still need for both parties to sign at the same time, with two or more witnesses who also sign the document. This shows us that there is little or no security in the signatures as such, but that the security aspect is handled by having well known eye witnesses to interview should the validity of the contract come under dispute at some point.

Re:Write once, reproduce more

[SpinyNorman]

If you search for LongPen videos on youtube you can see a demo of this at a trade show...

It's more than just a remote signature product - it's really meant for legal/financial use where there may possibly be disputes over what was signed, who was present. etc.

What the product does is transmit a photo of the document in the robo-pen device to the remote signing end where it appears in a display built into to the tablet device you sign on - it's as if you're singing the real document on the appropriate line/whereever. The system also takes and stores before/after photos of the signed document and saves audio/video of the remote signer (& robot end?) so that these can be brought up if there's any legal challenge... It should be noted that the anticipated legal challenges arn't because of this being a remote signature device, but rather that the whole photo/audio/video capture system is designed to address the challenges that already occur with traditional signed documents.

There are various comments in reply to this article about how this is nothing new, but from the video it seems that not only is it an entire singing/verification system, but also the signature reproduction quality is very high - it detects/reproduces 60 different pressure levels and samples at 2000/samples sec.

This is news? It isn't new.

[pz]

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.

Re:Margaret Atwood

[omeomi]

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.