What we know drives our decisions. If this is your knowledge base, consider the decisions that you are likely to make. Although laws have always lagged behind technology, the Internet has demonstrated an unprecedented rate of change and its users an incredibly fast rate of adoption of new technologies. The rapid commercial growth of the Internet that began more than seven years ago is today largely fueled by e-commerce, which will require cryptography and other mechanisms to provide privacy, authentication, message integrity, and trust to achieve widespread acceptance and success. And these mechanisms require procedures and policies and law, which is what the digital signature legislative efforts at the state and national levels is all about.
Some people think of a fax document with a signature on it.
Others see a Word document with an embedded graphical image of a handwritten signature. Still others think of certificates that bind an identity, a public key, and a certificate authentication chain. Secret key cryptography. Public key cryptography. Certification practice statement.