Anders,

>[...] 
>Personally, I think denial of digital signatures if you have local
>receipts will practically never happen.  Also I consider fraudulent
>signatures as a less important problem than fraudulent authentications as
>transactions often can be reversed, but authentication can't.  I.e. if you
>got "classified" information in your (fraudulent) hands you got it.

>cheers,
>Anders

I'm not sure. At least here in Europe we had "phantom transactions" at ATMs.
Reasons I remember have been eavesdropping of PINs, maintenance errors, fake
ATMs, etc. Today, it is hard to tell between somebody whose ATM-PIN was
attacked, and somebody who only claims that his PIN was attacked.
I think we have to anticipate that log-in procedures into signature systems
may also be attacked. Actually the difference between using a local
signature implementation in a networked office-PC and using a server-based
one may be small - the user doesn't really control either system. But on the
server-based system, by definition other people have control of the
password.
And not all transactions can easily be reversed, in particular not money
transations.

Kind regards

Arnd

----- Original Message -----
From: "Clara Centeno" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Gary W. Fresen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Weber, Arnd"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: "'Anders Rundgren '" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
"''internet-payments ' '" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 11:16
Subject: Re: AW: Digital signatures in Finland


Dear Anders, Arnd and Gary,

I attended last October a presentation from the lawyer Bensoussan
(Paris, 2001)
who was defending that, at least during the introduction phases, digital
signatures will have a legal disadvantage compared to hand-written
signatures.

This is due to the fact that the validity of electronic signatures has
to
be proved
when brought to court as proof, i.e. the link between the signatory and
the
text
signed has to be proved as well as the unaltered storage from the moment
of
creation until brought to court. This requirement together with the
general
lack
of familiarity with such digital proofs in court, will create the legal
disadvantage.

I would be interested to know your view
Regards,
Clara
(ePSO-team)

P.S. ePSO, the electronic Payment Systems Observatory, published a
report
in Nov 2001 on the potential of PKI and digital signatures for securing
retail
payments that may be of your interest, located at:
http://epso.jrc.es/Docs/Backgrnd-6.pdf.

The report questions the adequacy or timing of digital signatures to
secure
retail payments in the short term and explores the potential synergies
of a
co-operation between the private and the public sectors in the area of
PKI
and digital signatures.


___________________________________________

Clara Centeno
e-Payment Systems Observatory (ePSO)
Institute for Prospective Technological Studies
DG JRC - European Commission
Tel  :     +34 95 4488 352
Fax :      +34 95 4488 208
e-mail :   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
web:     http://epso.jrc.es

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