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physical signatures are just asking you to write your name in a box....
Not a huge difference.
No I disagree, the idea with physical 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.
Edit to fix typo and add italics.
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.
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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.
most young adults don’t sign in cursive anymore
That seems like a terrible idea. I'm disappointed in humans yet again.
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!"
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 rally 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.
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.
Reading through these comments and I'm just now realizing something; I've never gone searching to see data on if cursive actually is faster on average and if so, how much. And does that handwriting improves memory fact apply more to cursive or print writing or equally just because it uses more muscles in general?
I'd imagine it would partially depend on the script chosen, ligature vs looped, Spencerian vs New American vs D'nealian etc for speed but the memory thing I've got no guess.
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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.
To put a finer point on it, it's not even just "moral fibre". Sure, higher societal morality is something we should all strive for, but I'm not even asking for that much.
It's the morally neutral bullshit like handwriting, or reading a novel on your phone instead of on paper, or spending your free time playing video games or watching YouTube/Twitch as opposed to watching Network television. There's no reason to raise a fuss or dub others inferior for doing things a little different.
I'm not raising a fuss, but signing in detachéd does make it way easier for others to forge your signature and even makes it less difficult to replicate your own signature. Knowing how to write cursive costs nothing, so not practicing it - at least for signatures - seems terrible.
It lets you sign off greeting cards (more effectively)
It leads to faster note taking (though generally less neat notes, lol)
Why? Everyone's handwriting is different and unique whether it's cursive or regular script.
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.
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.
https://thelegalguide.org/understanding-signatures-legal-definitions-validity/
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.)
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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.
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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.
Sorry that's not right. You can see my other comment about the ESIGN Act here: https://lemmy.world/comment/25214883
Note: it also points out how the top response is just.. well, wrong.
"in cursive"
Laughs in years of deviating but programmed hand movements from which letters are rarely decipherable...
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I was at a grocery store back when you had to sign the little digital screen for a card transaction and I finished signing, but the cashier got distracted and didn’t accept the signature for a while, so I just doodled Godzilla trashing a skyscraper next to my name.
My best friend was there with me and from that day forward, I’m not sure if he’s ever signed something without adding a Batman logo.
Signatures are arbitrary.
That would be precisely an example of how signatures are not arbitrary, but rather marked in our own unique quirks.
"This guy drew a batman symbol on his signature!" "Oh yeah, EvilBit's friend always does that. That means you've got the real deal"
Except that you can draw whatever you want and it can be different each time in theory. Some may enforce consistency, but there’s no legal requirement of it.
Digital signatures are much more than "just typing your name in a box". The few times I digitally signed a doc I didn't even have to do that, just click on a big green button.
It's all connected to how you authenticated before you got to that point.
I think @mentaledge@sopuli.xyz explained it well.
The point of the signature isn't the mark, but that the affirmation on the document can reasonably be tied to you. For most of history, it has been tied to a certain mark, whether it be a signed name, a stamp or embossed seal, or even a drawing. That system generally breaks down in the digital age.
A low hanging fruit that is seen to work is having the mark of approval get tied to an account under the control of the signee. It isn't so much that you made the mark but that it is tied to an email address you control. So even if you don't sign it with an actual signature, it still gets tied to you.
It almost feels like I'm just trolling everyone by pushing back now, but:
The point of the signature isn’t the mark, but that the affirmation on the document can reasonably be tied to you. For most of history, it has been tied to a certain mark, whether it be a signed name, a stamp or embossed seal, or even a drawing. That system generally breaks down in the digital age.
In the context of only-physical documents, is that affirmation not helped by having certain marks and/or styles of signing that are typical of your own signing? Thus the specific mark contributes to the affirmation.
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Had my identity stolen. Thief bought a car with a loan they got online. Forged my signature at the dealer half a country away. I hired a lawyer because BofA are fucking criminals.
Me: "This is clearly not my signature on this document. Doesn't that mean anything?"
Lawyer: "Nope. Not a thing."
WTF.
Now anything asking for my signature is squiggles unrelated to the written language.
What else happened?
Went to court. Judge ruled in my favor. In the meantime I had contacted the Consumer Protection Bureau (US). Back when they had teeth and funding. BofA must have had a whole department that dealt with CPB because that shit got resolved quick. Took more than two months and around $1500 to get it cleaned up.
My credit is locked at all three agencies now. Highly recommend everyone do it. The fact it isn't locked by default is asenine.
Obligatory "bofa deez nuts"
Signature matching/analysis isn't particularly scientific, so in general a physical signature is used for clear authorization, not identification. When you log in to something to sign your identity is already set by other means, so all the signature needs to do is say "yes, I agree to this". E signatures in the US were legally formalized awhile ago, so it's not really a controversy.
The actual shape of your signature hasn't really meant much for some time. As recently as 2005, Visa's contract had the most bizarre requirements.
You are supposed to sign the back of your card. If you paid with the card, you had to sign the receipt. The cashier was supposed to examine the signature on the card and the signature on the receipt and decide if they matched.
But. If the card was not signed, the cashier was supposed to insist that the person present sign the card, and then the cashier was supposed to compare the signatures right there. We were also forbidden by contract from asking for ID.
It was like this further back than 2005. I worked retail in the mid 90s and it was the same. And if the signatures didn't match, well. Oh well. We had no power to do anything about it. The number of self-righteous idiots I had who thought that they were clever when they would sign their cards as Mikey mouse and then freak the hell out when I never bothered to check because it didn't matter if it was signed Mickey Mouse or Ronald Reagan and you signed the receipt with your actual name. We couldn't do anything! God they'd get so mad. Thank god we had great management that would back us.
The truth is, wet signatures have been absolutely worthless for .. well forever. The first time I had a credit card was in the late 80s and even back then it didn’t make any sense that I was signing receipts in the grocery store.
It does as much as does "testifying under oath" does to magically stop you from lying.
i.e., putting your hand on a significant bit of text and saying some special words doesn't stop you from lying, but it DOES create / enhance penalties if you do.
I scanned the responses, and didn't see anyone who mentioned this.
The point at which the U.S. allowed you to "sign" your name by typing was when the E-Sign Act was passed. That was in 2000, long before LLMs were really a concern.
The reason was to make online commerce easier. Verbal contacts could and continue to be enforced, but enforcement requires more effort than with a written contact.
At the time I thought the law was passed by people who didn't understand technology and how easy this made it for people to commit fraud or screw over consumers. However now I realize they just didn't give a fuck.
I think that's probably it, or pure cargo cult because "we've always had signatures so something's got to go in that slot". The whole idea of random scrawls for "authentication" has been weird all along. As if everyone walked around knowing what everyone's signatures should look like. And if you do know, you can just... write it that way.
(Plenty of countries just have digital "signing" that's a bit more like something sane, a central authentication thing based on your ID number and 2FA.)
Remember back in the day when you used to have to sign the back of your credit card.
I would write in that block “ASK TO SEE ID”. At least 100 cashiers would read that and then just stare at me.
Yeah. That's because nobody cares.
We just wanted to get through the line, we don't care who's paying your tab.
Absolutely!
IMO, that's not a digital signature. That's a normal signature on a computer. Digital signatures involve cryptography. For example, OpenPGP.
The digital signature is things you don't see. The visual signature is more for ceremony as it's referring to our past to smooth the transition
Proper digital signatures are very secure and prove that you have possession of the signing key and that the document has not been modified since. Unfortunately those keys are very expensive (unless your employer gets them for you), so usually when people sign something in Acrobat or whatever it will just use a self-signed certificate at best. This does still prove that the document hasn't been modified since it was signed, but it doesn't prove anything about who signed it.
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this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2026
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