Edupage, 5 July 2000 (fwd)

[David Vincenzetti]

FYI.

--vince

-----Forwarded message from EDUCAUSE <EDUC...@EDUCAUSE.EDU>-----

LAW ON ELECTRONIC SIGNATURES IS SEEN AS A BOON TO E-BUSINESS
A new law signed by President Clinton last week legalizing online
signatures is expected by analysts to greatly reduce
administrative costs and the time taken to complete online
transactions. The law will not end the competition for dominance
in the e-signature field, which is currently controlled by
companies such as VeriSign, Entrust Technologies, RSA, and
Baltimore Technologies. These companies provide electronic
certificates and coded messages to help businesses process online
transactions. The system ensures that electronic messages are
from the person or party that sent the message and that the
message was not altered through a technology called public key
encryption, which is utilized by all of the dominant e-signature
companies. Signature-mail.com, which enables customers to attach
a picture of their signature with their e-mails, hopes to benefit
from the new law, but the company's cofounder, Michael Lloyd,
maintains that this feature may be sought by companies such as
VeriSign in order to simplify encryption products for consumers.
Other methods of e-signatures could be determined by biometrics.
(New York Times Online, 4 July 2000)
-----End of forwarded message-----