Cryptography Reference
In-Depth Information
long-term preservation of authentic acts follow a similar logic: in order to
perform as the “competent witness” of a commitment, electronic writing
must be fortified by recorded traces of all the manipulations it is susceptible
to incur: creation, modifications, annotations, signature, conversion, trans-
mission, and so on. Likewise, digital signatures are unable to testify
in and
of themselves
of the identity and integrity of a document. Their effective-
ness depends on the numerous traces that testify to their own identity and
integrity as evidence: handwritten authorization forms, public-key cer-
tificates, access logs, and the like. Although the signature holds a special
rank among those traces, in many respects, it is also
just another piece of
metadata.
This lack of self-intelligibility of the signature is indeed a central dynamic
of all three case studies in this chapter. The power of the signature as a
forensic object can be understood only in relationship to its
institutional-
ized performance,
a dynamic present from the very beginnings of civil law
authenticity. As Fraenkel explains, signed documents provided a more
portable form of evidence than one founded on the availability of the
original witnesses to the contract:
To be able to forego witnesses to confirm a commitment means that the document
which states such a commitment is no longer dependent on the physical existence
of the contracting parties. It is sufficient that they have been present once, at the
moment of its creation. . . . The legal effect of the document is no longer tied to
the length of their lives. . . . The legal instrument is even more independent of the
formal circumstances surrounding a ceremony where statements, gestures, and
manipulation of objects were all necessary to establish the legal effects of the con-
tract. The scene of the modern contract is entirely different: it is writing which holds
the central role, surrounded by the notary and the parties. And it is the affixing of
autograph signatures which subsumes the gestuality of bodies.
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Yet although written documents and their signatures make possible the
virtualization of the contractual scene, their capacity to testify continues
to flow from a set of formal circumstances whose correct performance is
ensured by the trusted witness, the public officer. The signature's power as
a forensic trace cannot be reduced to its mere ability to identify parties or
provide for the integrity of the document. Nor can it be understood outside
of the institutional contexts of its creation and verification.
This power is further exemplified by the SCEC, whose system—to the
dismay of the French Ministry of Justice—merely provides a mechanical
reproduction of the public officer's signature. Yet the SCEC's electronic
