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posted by martyb on Tuesday September 18 2018, @05:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the show-me-a-sign dept.

C.J. Collier posted to the gnupg-users' list about working through the steps to get GNU Privacy Guard approved for Washington State electronic notary public endorsements:

[...] This all seemed to me to be something that GnuPG is designed to do and does quite well. So I sent an email on Friday night to the sender of the letter requesting specific issues that my provider did not comply with. This morning I received a call from the DoL[*], and was able to successfully argue for GnuPG's qualification as an electronic records notary public technology provider for the State of Washington.

In short, GnuPG can now be used to perform notarial acts < http://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=42.45.140> in the State of Washington!

[*] DoL: WA State Licensing (DOL) Official Site: Home


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 18 2018, @06:09PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 18 2018, @06:09PM (#736630)

    It's things like this that prove to me (again and again) how horrifically primitive our society actually is.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 18 2018, @06:23PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 18 2018, @06:23PM (#736635)

      Most legal documents are kept in physical form, which is probably why it's taken so long. If you're buying a house or doing most of the things that you want notarized, it's probably going to be printed.

      However, this opens a bunch of possibilities, involving digital files and digital copies. I'm not surprised that this is a thing here now, given how many tech firms are located near Seattle. This is still somewhat limiting in that you presumably have to be there in person to meet with the notary, present ID and get things taken care of.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by urza9814 on Tuesday September 18 2018, @07:16PM (3 children)

      by urza9814 (3954) on Tuesday September 18 2018, @07:16PM (#736662) Journal

      Is there even any point to this though? A society does not become advanced merely by using technology; there's gotta be an actual purpose to the thing.

      As far as I can tell, you've still gotta go to the notary in person. The point is to have a witness who can testify that you actually signed the thing yourself. In theory we could rely on PGP keys as being proof of identity much more reliable than a simple signature, but in practice someone can claim their computer was hacked or infected or they lost a USB stick with their keys and they didn't really sign that document. You still need an independent third party to confirm identity at the time of the "signature".

      The point of the notary signature is to identify a person who witnessed the agreement -- so it doesn't necessarily have to be secure, it just has to point you to a person who can confirm or deny it. And using PGP does not seem to negate the need for that notary as a witness. So what exactly does this change? Seems like it might just make things more difficult for the notary if they choose to use it...although having more options is still welcome.

      • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 18 2018, @07:22PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 18 2018, @07:22PM (#736668)

        Face-to-face identification is a total ruse. Your argument only makes sense if face-to-face identification were a rock-solid thing, but it ain't, and so your argument is nonsensical.

        That being said, there's no point to notaries anymore other than to identify a person and issue a digital certificate, which that person may then use thereafter by himself, without ever having to contact a bureaucracy again for any purpose other than to get a new certificate. Hell, the person should even be able to revoke that certificate independently.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @02:44AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @02:44AM (#736891)

        It means that you don't have to have a physical copy of the documents to be notarized. It also means that the entire document would be notarized, not just the signature page.

        I was shocked when I went to have something notarized and the notary didn't do anything to ensure that the middle pages of the document were secured. Just the end page where I signed. So, if somebody got the document and messed with the middle pages, there'd be no way of knowing that.

        Whereas with this, if the notary signs something like this electronically, they can sign the entire thing, not just the final page. So, if there's any alteration to the document of any sort, then the signature really shouldn't work. Also, it's nice that you're not required to store a physical copy, you can store the digital copy in several different places.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @05:17AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @05:17AM (#736917)

          Fun fact, my state specifically disallows digital signatures because they either "alter" the originals when appended to them, or are easily lost when a separate file. However, when notarizing either paper or electronic documents, they allow notary stamps to be added to the file, which alter the original, and attaching a notary declaration as a separate sheet, which is easily lost.

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