Financial Cryptography

I read your post today because I was wondering why you of all people would endorse such a method.

But thinking about the "multi factor" authentication made me realise something. Eventhough thumb prints have been a widely used "maker's authentication mark" in Asia. The signing of "formal" documents regarding "public" law between parties almost always involved a third party as a witness to the signing. Whether signing with a thumbprint, seal, or signature.

In Europe the notary public enabled such signing sessions either required by the gouverning law or at the request of the respective parties.

The trust we have in the two-party signing is may be a fairly modern development, a result of an increased public trust in the law in the course of recent history . May be we need to go back in time to study models of trust used in more troubled times.

A certification authority is party a priori to any signing session and may be we need a model where a third party (whoever is going to play that part is a nice research subject ;-) is concurrently involved in an identification and/or authentication signing process.

Just a thought ;-)

Twan wrote:
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> I read your post today because I was wondering why you of all people would endorse such a method.

Moi? Endorse? Thumbs up!

No, actually I don't endorse it so much as recognise that it fits the definition. Now, that said, there is a lot of room to manouvre here. This technique will be adequate for some things, and not for others; it will be augmented easily with other things, and not others.

Let me put it this way: the last two contracts I agreed to were done over the phone, not seen or met every before. The other party in both cases recorded the phone call, and read out the terms, and asked whether I agreed. Does it work? Well, it records an agreement.

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> But thinking about the "multi factor" authentication made me realise something. Eventhough thumb prints have been a widely used "maker's authentication mark" in Asia. The signing of "formal" documents regarding "public" law between parties almost always involved a third party as a witness to the signing. Whether signing with a thumbprint, seal, or signature.
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> In Europe the notary public enabled such signing sessions either required by the gouverning law or at the request of the respective parties.

Yes - but this is primarily a European civil law tradition, and it even goes further than the witnessing. Some contracts have to be mediated by the notary public, who is there to represent the interests of *both* parties.

So, in European tradition, tri-party contracts are the normal custom. Whereas in Anglo tradition, two-party and quadra-party -- two parties and their lawyers -- are the tradition.

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> The trust we have in the two-party signing is may be a fairly modern development, a result of an increased public trust in the law in the course of recent history . May be we need to go back in time to study models of trust used in more troubled times.

Yes, or economics. I read an exposition of the notary's role in real estate in civil law countries. In short, their role ensured a much more reliable result than the common law analogue. But the fees charged by the notary also exceeded the lawyers' fees in civil law code. OT3H the fraud in civil law is almost non-existent, and the fraud in common law is annoyingly hight

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> A certification authority is party a priori to any signing session and may be we need a model where a third party (whoever is going to play that part is a nice research subject is concurrently involved in an identification and/or authentication signing process.
>
> Just a thought

Ha - if this third party would step forward and take a stake in the agreement, I'm all ears. But how to make that third party deliver some value is the hard part.