Sorry that’s not right. You can see my other comment about the ESIGN Act here: lemmy.world/comment/25214883
Note: it also points out how the top response is just… well, wrong.
No I disagree, the idea with ohysical signatures is that you write it in cursive, so in theory nobody will do ot exactly the same way as you write it - but then people can forge things, and since people don’t actually write their name the exact same way every time, forgery is essentially as good as perfect.
Fmstrat@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 4 days ago
And, most young adults don’t sign in cursive anymore, so, aside from terrible handwriting, their printed name isn’t really much different than a typed name.
FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world 4 days ago
most young adults don’t sign in cursive anymore
That seems like a terrible idea. I’m disappointed in humans yet again.
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Meh. After hearing years of complaints from old people about how terrible young people are, and working with a lot of young people who are objectively much better people than the old ones that complain about them, I always try to stop to think about why traditions are valuable.
Does writing your words with extra loopy bits that are less legible than print REALLY make you a better person?
Not learning cursive is like not learning Latin. Maybe it was useful at some point, but the only reason to push for it now, is because “That’s how I did it, so it must be the best way, and everyone else is wrong!”
mushroommunk@lemmy.today 4 days ago
On the flip side, there’s validity in doing things just for the aesthetics of it and we sacrifice too much to the ever present drive for efficiency.
Cursive isn’t necessarily the banner we should all really behind for that though handwriting something is still shown as one of the best ways to remember something.
As a fan of fountain pens and handwritten letters it is nice to get one knowing someone put that effort into it.
I dunno where I’m going with any of this. Teachers and schools are underfunded, if kids are fucked it’s our fault don’t blame them, fancy squiggles are fun.
Whooping_Seal@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
I think there’s validity in learning/teaching cursive, if you’re proficient it’s a much faster way of writing. Handwritten notetaking has been shown to be more effective than digital in terms of concept retention (you’re not just regurgitating content verbatim), and cursive can facilitate better notetaking. I’d argue its setting students up for better outcomes in secondary and post-secondary institutions.
Regardless of that I do agree with your view, we should not just continue things for the sake of tradition, young people aren’t “terrible” for forsaking certain traditions. If anything, re-evaluating what we hold as important is a useful exercise, especially when it comes to education.
FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world 4 days ago
not learning cursive is like not learning Latin
I think both are still useful today, cursive less so. But sure, they’re not indicative of superior moral fibre, which is presumably why you prefer young people to old people.
snooggums@piefed.world 4 days ago
Sure, some people who practice their signature and do it consistently can have theirs tested for consistency but forgery is a thing. I have never had a consistent signature in five decades which confirms the whole ‘unique signature’ thing is bullshit.
The whole point is just having something that holds up for the legal system, and a lot of bullshit does.
FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I have never had a consistent signature in five decades which confirms the whole ‘unique signature’ thing is bullshit.
Valid.
Having a robotic copy+paste signature probably only starts being useful if you’re known to have huge amounts of cash in the bank or you’re an artist, or have a troublesome bart simpson-esque kid.
WoodScientist@lemmy.world 4 days ago
How’s your cuneiform? Do you know how to use a quill pen? Do you know how to bleach a peace of expensive parchment so that it can be reused?
FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world 4 days ago
How’s your cuneiform
Yeaaaaah wtf are you talking about lad. That is an alphabet, i.e of a foreign language, not the act of being able to write my own name in cursive in my native Latin script.
Do you know how to use a quill pen?
Yes. Why do you not know how to?
Do you know how to bleach a peace of expensive parchment so that it can be reused?
I could probably figure out how to bleach a piece of parchment in order to re-use it, but have never had to.
Have a nice day.
cattywampas@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Why? Everyone’s handwriting is different and unique whether it’s cursive or regular script.
FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Difference is more pronounced in cursive, I strongly believe. I look at a lot of regular script handwriting and it looks the same as another person’s, you’d have to get out a magnifying glass or microscope to see the subtleties.
Now that I say that though I think a lot of handwriting manages to look the same when people strive for the same ideal of neatness.
dohpaz42@lemmy.world 4 days ago
You might disagree, but that doesn’t mean you’re right. A signature does not require cursive. It doesn’t even have to be legible. It’s a mark that you make signifying that you agree to whatever it is you’re signing.
emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
Could be a jurisdiction thing. Non-cursive signatures* get rejected in my country if the recipient bothers to check.
( * If written in the Latin alphabet.)
FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Fair - the idea with a signature is that you ideally write it in cursive, unless you have a seal or stamp to hand? Depending on what the document asks, and most will ask a written signature.
Khanzarate@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Signatures have never required cursive. Historically, people who couldn’t read or write would just put an X in the signature spot and that was valid. Yeah, there is a marginal benefit to physically signing something in cursive, but the purpose of signing it has always been more of a final agreement step.
If handwriting and spelling and how I signed it actually mattered at all legally, then I could sign a different name when I buy a car, get keys, drive away, and later in court, say “well I never agreed to pay for this car, look at my signature, it says Frank Sinatra”. Same goes for a true forgery. The evidence I didn’t sign it myself is my statement in court saying “I didn’t sign this”, and whatever signs there are that I didn’t benefit from this.
Osan@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Where I come from the X thing wouldn’t be legally binding. What people who couldn’t read or write would do is using their fingerprints. They would put their finger on a stamp ink pad and then stamp the paper with their finger. That’s why we say “someone who uses their fingerprint” as a euphemism for “illiterate”.
Khanzarate@lemmy.world 4 days ago
That’s really interesting and a great way to do that, honestly. A singular fingerprint also makes more sense than needing handwriting analysis to detect a forgery, too. Kinda feel that should be the norm everywhere, honestly, a signing and a print next to it to verify against if the need arises.
Osan@lemmy.world 4 days ago
P.S. Sorry for the rant you can ignore this post. I’m just frustrated with the bureaucracy here.
I mean sure but these bureaucratic laws and practices are ancient. I come from Egypt and the bureaucracy here is terrible. To do anything government related you have you to free an entire day and some times almost a week from your schedule just to finish the paperwork and visit the required government offices. Why is that still necessary in the digital age.
When our government decided to digitise they didn’t upgrade their system they just added additional digital steps. So now the process has even more redundant steps. The issue is that the rules are too old and the system is too centralised and also fragmented. To get a single paper/request approved you usually have to go through multiple departments, offices and ministries each with their own rules, requirements and paperwork, while we have the infrastructure to just do it with a single paper, an ID and a biometric scanner and share the info between departments digitally. Also a system this complex has to have many loopholes and bound for corruption.
The argument I keep hearing for bureaucracy is that the government has to keep providing government jobs to reduce unemployment since a significant portion work in the public sector, but these jobs are useless anyway we can give some of them actually useful tasks and with the saved money we can put it to better the welfare system. Another argument is that you have pay multiple fees, but then you can also take these fees as a single summed transaction and save the time.
HubertManne@piefed.social 4 days ago
So your last paragraph is a bit off. One it was generally checked with your id that the names were the same. I often had to sign a non typical signature because of a place that required the full name. then also signing someone elses name on a document would be something they can go after you for. Im not sure which all laws but you can’t pretend to be someone you are not with contracts and agreements and such.
Khanzarate@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I was still speaking historically, so I meant before easy checks like your ID were in place. Its definitely harder to do that, nowadays. But of course they can go after you for it, that’s my point. You’ve agreed to a contract by the act of signing anything. If I forge a name of a nonexistent person, they can still go after me as if I’d signed it normally, because the act of signing at all is what binds me, not what I actually sign. I held the pen, I agreed to the contract. It would be ridiculous to escape legal consequences by doing things like signing differently, and in this area of law, at least in the US, common sense prevailed and I’ll be liable for whatever I willingly signed, whether that’s my name, an X, a fingerprint, a fake name, or anything else.
stoly@lemmy.world 4 days ago
In parts of the world, paperwork is managed with stamps and a mark. Your doctor in latin america will stamp a blank prescription pad with a stamp that has their name and license number. They will then make a recognizable mark over the stamp. Same with your lawyer and all government offices. The point isn’t that someone can use handwriting analysis - which is just fluff - and rather that they possess the stamp and those who would read the paperwork recognize their particular mark.
BlackVenom@lemmy.world 4 days ago
“in cursive”
Laughs in years of deviating but programmed hand movements from which letters are rarely decipherable…
FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Which can, in all fairness, be a benefit of it. Because you might want to write something that people can’t immediately read - notes to yourself, notes in class, a passed note to someone else.
I’m not going to claim I’m happy about having “cursive for handwriting” drilled into me and being forced to learn it, but I do think it’s helpful to know for signatures or when it’s fancy writing time. There’s not really a benefit to not knowing about particular thing/skill… almost ever. It’s like the most low effort skill, and all muscle memory.~___~
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Nobody has relied only on signatures to verify that a person signed it, since forever. Especially because forgery was always a thing.
This is why documents that are important aren’t just signed by one person; they’re signed by witnesses who presumably will vouch for it. (Like notary public’s are a thing.)
For lesser contracts they first verify you are in fact you.
There’s no functional difference online- to within a reasonable standard.
msage@programming.dev 4 days ago
Yeah, no.
I wanted to withdraw some money from my investment portfolio in bank, and the teller denied my request multiple times because of mismatching signature. Then they told me to change my stored signature, which took additional 10 minutes.
Like how in the fuck does any of that make sense. It needs to be same, but I can change it regardless, so what was achieved.
I never use handwriting, my signature isn’t even 60% same between any 2 attempts.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 3 days ago
So how did they know you were you?
They allowed you to update the signature. They may have been oddly fixated on the signatures matching, but they still verified your identity in some other way.
Or they’re idiots who shouldn’t be in control of other people’s money,
msage@programming.dev 1 day ago
Yes, they verified my ID, but still required my signature.
Most likely due to withdrawing money being bad for the bank.
Natanael@infosec.pub 4 days ago
This is not universal. Many don’t proactively check, the signature is typically used afterwards when the account owner makes a claim that some action was fraudulent. Some businesses will check to avoid precisely dealing with those claims, but most don’t have to.
And also, legally the mark can be anything and it’s just a convention that it is your name.