Talk:Electronic signature

message: Hey, I made the first paragraph no longer US Centric. I also reorganized the page and added some introductory paragraphs to the technical sections. This reorganization and introductory paragraphs I hope create a clearer sense of the relation between the legal requirements for a contractually valid electronic signature, electronic signature schemes, and methods (such as digital signatures) regularly used to implement those schemes. 
I added a separate section for electronic signature schemes, the high-level implementations of underlying methods (such as cryptography) which go on to see much use. There is very little content in this section so far, but because the actual technology implementations which go on to become popular for electronic contract signing is really core to what this article studies, I think it is a section, or at least a subject within in this article, that needs to be expanded upon.
--Monk of the highest order(t) 04:48, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Did some work on the problems.

message: :::I feel this article and the article on digital signatures should be switching contents to some extent. In European legislation the more common term used is "electronic signatures", see the legal section in the dig-sign-article. Electronic signatures thus include simple password authentication schemes (!). Technological stuff is almost always about digital signatures in the sense of public key signatures (public+private key).  This means 1) moving legal stuff from dig-sign-article to this one, 2) moving technical stuff to dig-sign-article.  Anyone volunteering to be jointly responsible for such a move? I can take the legal stuff --Burlefot 13:53, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Achggk. Sorry, I didn't notice your comment (not watch listed for some reason). If you can do the legal backstopping, I'll do the crypto backstopping in response. But, given the absurdist situation in this field, I hold out no hope that WP will be able to (or even should) straighten out the terms. Drop me a line. ww 21:48, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Ojw 22:19, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: collison w/ Euro terms, should we change to conform?

message: The "Electronic Signature Vendors" section should be removed per WP:NOT#LINK, WP:EL, and WP:SPAM. --Ronz 20:41, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Removed. --Ronz 16:02, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Links to "Reference Sites" which are glorified advertising for the company seeking to sell a product should either be removed, or more companies should be encouraged to place information there. There are plenty of other reference sites, CIC, ARX, Orion, which actually provide information as well whose links do not appear here.  EIther make it entirely NON commercial (ie. stick to Biometric groups, non profits or technology consortiums and governments) or invite everyone.  Different vendors have different "takes" on the technology ergo different ways of defining it all. ---JKCmomma Oct 31. 208.180.123.195 15:59, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: linkfarm

message: This whole area of signatures, signing, electronic and digital is a mess.  I see these problems:
# The pages concentrate on form not function; that is, what a signature is, rather than what signing is.  Without the latter, the former is meaningless, which explains why the pages are so confused.
## - i'd like to add here a practical test for what actions constitute "signing"
a digital signature - an event where by [you] [affiliate] your [signature] to a [document] with the intent of agreeing with its contents AND accepting your role in it; Knowing that a truthful witness would, if called upon (at any time in the future) give an accurate accounting as evidence of this event.
where:
[you] means a set of persons containing one or more persons.
[affiliate]  means the process of adding something (such as your [signature]) to the overall content of a [document].
[Signature] means	a marker that relates to some person or group uniquely.
[document]	more than one collection of text and or graphics, a set of of such collections.
 Paul Alagna - personal memo to Digital Signatures Group 2005
# The pages probably need a good definition + introduction as to what the terms mean.  Without good definitions, technological discussions (which mostly characterises the audience here) are founded on sand.  We need definitions for signature, signing, electronic signing, digital signing, etc.
# Also, we need to lay to rest the relationship between digital and electronic signatures.  Digital signatures are a subset of electronic signatures.  In general, digital signatures are understood to be those that use public-private key cryptography, regardless of whether this makes logical, legal or semantic sense;  the rest are electronic signatures.  W74.105.106.62 (talk) 06:32, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: foundations

message: The National Archives of Australia link. Tony (talk) 08:37, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ref 4 a dead link 

message: The new section "Legally recognized providers" does not contain any citations from sources that are independent of the companies listed. Also, there is no adequate explanation of what "legally conforming" in the section title means, or how it differs from "legally recognized" in the text of the section. At least in the USA there is no requirement for electronic signature providers to be recognized by the government, except for a few situations. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:09, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Legally conforming providers

message: I think article Digital signatures and law should be merged with  section Electronic signature#Laws regarding use of electronic signatures. Both cover the same topic and they have repeated links.  
ecse (talk) 21:22, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Disagree - The terminology is confusing and Digital signatures and law appears to have strayed into electronic signatures. A distinction remains between electronic signatures based on cryptographic algorithms and simple strings, text or sounds intended to identify the author. By typing four tildas at the end of this comment, I am affixing an electronic signature. I do not believe that that is a digital signature, as that term is commonly used. Unfortunately, some European law refers to electronic signatures and uses the phrase advanced electronic signatures to refer to signatures based on cryptographic algorithms.
FrankFlanagan (talk) 22:36, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

text: Agree (?correct convention?)  - The above distincttions could be addressd within article (and are idem. within it)Jabberwoch (talk) 14:08, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Laws regarding use of electronic signatures merge with Digital signatures and law 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Electronic signature. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20051109221548/http://enterprise.state.wi.us/home/strategic/esig.htm to http://enterprise.state.wi.us/home/strategic/esig.htm
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20060304004700/http://www.naa.gov.au:80/recordkeeping/er/Security/6-glossary.html to http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/er/Security/6-glossary.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110506185818/http://cio.ny.gov:80/policy/ESRA/esra.htm to http://www.cio.ny.gov/Policy/ESRA/esra.htm
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120626125130/http://www.ida.gov.sg:80/Policies%20and%20Regulation/20060420164343.aspx to http://www.ida.gov.sg/Policies%20and%20Regulation/20060420164343.aspx
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Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 10:33, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I started editing the context which is/was in several cases not really substantiated. 
# First sentence in 2nd paragraph now has correct sources.
# The section on digital signatures (beforehand "cryptographic signatures" appeared to be the option of a person or group. I rewrote it in compliance with
## the content in the main article on digital signatures
## terminology used in standards by European Community and NIST
## I also fixed the description below.
To be done:
# The intro is still not concise and lacks sources
# The section on "Controversial Assumptions" does not show any source. Is it original research ?
# Biometric signatures needs sources.
# Digitally captured signatures does not have any source
# The sections on Technological implications state examples from the Baltics and Iceland. Aren't there more general examples?
ScienceGuard (talk) 14:31, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revision of Content and Links 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Electronic signature. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120316083906/http://www.asil.org/ilib/ilib0104.htm to http://www.asil.org/ilib/ilib0104.htm#04
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110115172742/http://www.nccusl.org:80/update/uniformact_factsheets/uniformacts-fs-ueta.asp to http://www.nccusl.org/Update/uniformact_factsheets/uniformacts-fs-ueta.asp
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110605050917/http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/showtdm/cr/SOR-2005-30//?showtoc=&instrumentnumber=SOR-2005-30 to http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/showtdm/cr/SOR-2005-30//?showtoc=&instrumentnumber=SOR-2005-30
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110927073911/http://www.abc.com.pl/serwis/du/2001/1450.htm to http://www.abc.com.pl/serwis/du/2001/1450.htm
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Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 20:39, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The article had multiple issues. Reasons were
# the understanding of "electronic signature" in this article was vague
# the article moves towards legal aspects although the title did not promise this.
# many sections represented original work.
Issues:
# I rephrased the intro and added a technical description which was missing. I used the neutral but substantiated definition from eIDAS,  where an electronic signature refers to “data in electronic form which is attached to or logically associated with other data in electronic form and which is used by the signatory to sign.” (works well with NIST-DSS as well). I also added a technical description for the Digital Signature Section.
# there were several sections on technical implementations. Most of the content was not substantiated. 
## subsection biometric signatures: The section appears interesting but really needs notable references. Can anybody contribute? Otherwise we need to delete it
## digitally captured signatures: I deleted the section which appeared to be original research and misleading in the context of electronic signatures.
## e-sign and mobile phone: the cases are in my humble opinion not notable. And: there is a European regulation on digital signatures. That should apply here. I deleted the paragraph.
# The section: "Legal definitions" is far too US-biased. Shall we delete it? Or shift the legal data into an article "Legal aspects of electronic signatures"
# The article is missing the perspective of South and Middle America and Asia. Could anybody contribute?
# Many of the books and journals were more than 10 years old. I deleted them.
ScienceGuard (talk) 13:07, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the legal aspects of legal signatures are key to distinguishing them from attribution mechanisms that have no legal effect, so at least a summary of legal aspects should be in this article. Ideally we would have a world-wide view, but due to the large number of countries, that is difficult. I think it is legitimate to concentrate on the legal aspects that are affecting large number of transactions, or high-value transactions, no matter where in the world those transactions are occurring. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:40, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Rework of the Article

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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090408073109/http://www.jsboard.co.uk/publications/digisigs/index.htm to http://www.jsboard.co.uk/publications/digisigs/index.htm
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thread_title:  External links modified