Digital Signature 2

[structuralaggie]

Does anyone know anything about digital signatures? Texas does not allow a scanned image of a signed seal, but it will allow a digital signature that will be removed if the electronic file is altered. The last set of drawings I issued, I had them printed out, then I signed them, and then scanned them back to pdf. The quality of the drawings wasn't that good due to the scanning. Not to mention much more work was involved. Can anyone help?

 

[jdonville]

structuralaggie,

I guess the points that I am really trying to make are:

1) The Banjo developers are taking an easy route by binding the license with a specific CPU (it's either hard or impossible to spoof the internal CPU serial number). Unless you have a laptop or a second copy of Banjo, you don't always have the ability to sign your documents using Banjo. Using a hardware lock or electronic license server should be a good compromise between ensuring piracy protection and flexibility of use.

2) Your private key data reside on the computer's hard drive (I would personally make a backup copy stored on some durable and secured media). This is really a personal key, and there may be situations where you don't want personal data residing on a device that is owned by your employer. At any rate, you should be able to permanently delete this information from the computer's drive. Your PE license is issued to you - you just indefinitely "rent" it to your employer in exchange for certain compensations.

3) What happens in the instance where there are multiple professionals signing documents (not necessarily the same documents)? Does the firm buy them each a copy of Banjo? I would imagine that it depends on the size of the firm, but it is not hard to imagine smaller firms installing one copy on the computer normally used by an adminisrtative assistant and having him or her "sign" all the electronic reports or drawings on behalf of the PEs.

I like some of the features of Banjo, but feel that the implementation of some of the licensing and key management could stand some improvement. Again, maybe I'm too paranoid.

IFRs,

FYI, Adobe 7.0 includes support for 3rd-party authenticated timestamps to be included in the digital signature.

Jeff

 

[structuralaggie]

You have valid points. In my situation, it works great, I suppose because I work for a small company. I will agree there is room for improvement, but it is a giant leap from what I was doing before. I first had to get a set of prints made, then sign them, then have them scanned back into digal format (One of our clients requires digital submittals). This whole process would kill some serious man hours, and quality in the prints was also lost.

All I can say is that I am really happy that the Banjo plug in allows me to skip all the above and just make digital signed prints directly, and it allows me to comply with the board's signature requirements.

I don't work for the Banjo guys either! I think I should get an endorsement for all the good things I am saying.