> So why not just follow the standard practice of the trusted secretary > signing the document himself and annotating it was signed for and on > behalf of his boss?
Because the law says the document must bear the President's signature, not that of a functionary acting on the President's direction. > If the "autopen" signature looks just like the real deal then, unless > the document is annotated to indicate it is machine-generated by > <name>, you have described something that sounds to me like an act of > deception. Deception? In politics? Surely you jest. That could /never/ happen... > I cannot think of a situation where it would be appropriate to have a > machine fake somebody's signature, rather than have somebody else sign > on their behalf. This original thread started off with Daniel Kahn Gillmor saying there were no use cases for a third party holding signing keys. Well, there *are* use cases, as evidenced by the President's signing of the Affordable Care Act. And every time someone says "well, he really shouldn't," I don't know how to read that except as an admission of "yes, there is a use case, but no, I don't like it." In which case you're in full agreement with me and you're just in denial about it. Yes, there is a use case, and no, I don't like it, either... but that doesn't change the fact there's a use case! _______________________________________________ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
