[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: No false holographs, was Re: [E-CARM] PKI, CAs, TTPs &c.

While I agree with the physiscs, I am piqued by the fact that lawyers in
Argentina
refer to handritten signatures as "firmas olografas" (missing "h" is
intentional).
I wonder why, especially since I don4t believe our lawyers are trained in
laser physics.

Seriously, I have not been able to pin-point the etimology of this useage
yet.

Any ideas?

-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Gerck <egerck@laser.cps.softex.br>
To: Charles W. Gardiner <gardiner@bbn.com>
Cc: Carl Ellison <cme@cybercash.com>; cert-talk@structuredarts.com
<cert-talk@structuredarts.com>; spki@c2.net <spki@c2.net>
Date: Viernes 27 de Marzo de 1998 20:30
Subject: No false holographs, was Re: [E-CARM] PKI, CAs, TTPs &c.


>On Fri, 27 Mar 1998, Charles W. Gardiner wrote:
>
>>    You ask "By holographic signatures, do you mean handwritten
signatures?".
>>The answer is yes.  A holograph is "a document wholly in the handwriting
of its
>>author or the handwriting itself".  Not to be confused with a hologram.
The
>>adjectival use is ambiguous, as you note.
>>
>
>;-)
>
>As a laser physicist I holo-disagree with this terminolgy.
>Holography is the technical name for the part of physics that deals
>with holograms .. and holographs, as done by holographists.
>
>Further, linguistically, there is nothing of a "holograph" in a
>handwritten signature -- which is entirely localized.
>
>Cryptographically, BTW, a digital signature is much more
>"holographic" than a handwritten one, specially because it depends on
>the whole document's contents by the hash.
>
>But, and here you should really abandon such use, the name
>"holograph" is totally misleading for "a document wholly in the
>handwriting of its author or the handwriting itself" because a true
>"holographic"  property of an object has the characteristic that any
>part of the document can represent the whole object -- which is
>clearly NOT the case here.
>
>For example, for a hologram or holograph that deserves its name, even
>if you divide it in 100's of pieces, each piece will still be able to
>independently represent the whole object. So, a holograph is not
>called a holograph just because it represents a "whole", which any
>sequence of pictures can do, but because it *indivisibly* represents
>such "whole" even in its independent parts.
>
>Not the case of a document which can be shredded for security
>reasons... a shredded holograph would certainly represent the same
>object in each of its pieces...
>
>
>Cheers,
>
>Ed
>
>______________________________________________________________________
>Dr.rer.nat. E. Gerck                     egerck@novaware.cps.softex.br
>http://novaware.cps.softex.br
>    --- Meta-Certificate Group member, http://www.mcg.org.br ---
>
>
>+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
>+ For information about the cert-talk mailing list, including archives
+
>+ and how to subscribe and unsubscribe, visit:
+
>+                http://mail.structuredarts.com/cert-talk
+
>+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+