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New Standard For EU-Compliant Electronic Signatures

Posted by timothy on from the ja-das-war-ich dept.

An anonymous reader writes "ETSI has published a multi-part standard that will facilitate secure paperless business transactions throughout Europe, in conformance with European legislation. The standard defines a series of profiles for PAdES — Advanced Electronic Signatures for PDF documents — that meet the requirements of the European Directive on a Community framework for electronic signatures (Directive 1999/93/EC)."

3 of 42 comments (clear)

  1. Good to see. by palegray.net · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's good to see some progress being made in the formalization of standards for accepting electronic signatures. I'm reminded of the issues with conventional legal guidelines surrounding hand-written signatures, and look forward to cryptographically verifiable alternatives.

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    1. Re:Good to see. by timmarhy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      while i agree, it still boils down to a single point of failure - trust. back in the day the bank teller not only got your signature, she knew your face. by far the most effective security we have ever had, it's all been down hill since personalised service was dumped.

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  2. Re:Adobe Lobby machine by The+Cisco+Kid · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Exactly. I can read pretty much read any random PDF found on the net or sent to me, with my choice of tools (Adobe, xpdf, evince, etc). Likewise, I can produce postscript (which I can convert to pdf that can be read with the same choice of tools [Adobe, xpdf, evince, etc] ) with anything that can 'print' documents on my Debian system

    I have yet to see anything approaching that level of interoperability, BY DEFAULT, using MS formats. And if it ever comes, it will be only after MS has lodged every possible protest and done everything else possible to prevent it.