Cryptography Reference
In-Depth Information
signature enabled significant gains in productivity while keeping stable the
main parameters of the system: the practical necessity of delivering paper
records, the legal requirements for “handwritten” signatures, and—cru-
cially—the solemn character of the public officer's signature. By preserving
the visual environment of the act, seal, and handwritten signature, the
system provides cognitive continuity, a new yet familiar context for the
public officers to signify their commitment to the contents of the record,
their most important professional responsibility.
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Familiarity and continuity may even breed innovation. The computer-
ization of the land registry takes place in the context of a trend that cuts
across the three case studies: the data fields of notarial contracts, records
of civil status, and
ordonnances d'inscription
are populated directly from the
personal and institutional databases of notaries, town halls, and adminis-
trative agencies. Rather than the production and authentication of these
documents, it is instead the ability to repurpose, centralize, or exchange
this data through shared document ontologies and communication proto-
cols that is driving the development of administrative information systems.
Indeed, both the notarial and land registry application decrees included
specific requirements for interoperability with respect to both data exchange
and authentication. In such a context, the institutional mechanisms
deployed to guarantee data quality and appropriate access control become
particularly significant. The solutions developed by the GILFAM to ensure
the presumption of authenticity of its online register are thus particularly
intriguing. The use of the judge's signature as a trigger to committing data
to the system, as well as the periodic verifications of the conformity of the
database with the signed
ordonnances d'inscription
, presents new and unfore-
seen applications of cryptographic signatures in the context of emerging
documentary practices.
Indeed, these various adaptations of the digital signature model to the
practical constraints of real-world institutional settings outlined in this
chapter suggest the potential for a different approach to the design of
cryptographic analogues. As Sellen and Harper's ethnographic investiga-
tions of office life demonstrate, paying close attention to paper and its
material affordances provides a powerful entry point into the complex
ecologies of tools, procedures, and moral codes that constitute administra-
tive work. Designers might then develop technologies that “allow people
to leverage the skills they already possess and to draw on the everyday
