EU Draft Digital Signature Directive

[Brian Gladman]

George Foot <georgefoot@oxted.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>But the man-in-the-street will attach the meaning which the words suggest
to him.
>
>Surely the most urgent consideration should be to change the name from
>"digital signature" to something else which does describe the feature you
are
>promoting.
>
>"Check-of-Origin" or anything else meaningful which will not cause
confusion in lay
>minds with "trust" and "signature" and other terms used indiscriminatedly
when
>in fact they have very different meanings.

But a written signature is no different - it says nothing about the
trustworhiness of its owner - so surely the term 'digital signature' is
reasonable in this respect?

If there is a difficulty here it is the one pointed out by Carl Elison -
that the binding of a digital signature to its owner is weak whereas its
binding to a signed data item is strong.  This is different to the strength
of the association that we have come to expect from signatures.

    Brian