Signatures: An evolving art

A sign of the times People have been using special characters to mark their identities for over 5,000 years. But the way we sign our names is constantly changing. Over the millennia, we’ve etched symbols into clay tablets, marked documents with personalized stamps, dipped ornate rings into hot wax, and scribbled incomprehensible cursive at the bottom of our checks. Today, signatures are changing once again. As we shift from paper documents to digital record-keeping, pen and ink are being replaced by credit card chips, encryption protocols, and fillable PDFs. Soon, the handwritten signature you practiced in grade school may be obsolete. Don’t mourn them. Writing our names in cursive was never a very reliable way to verify our identities. Systems that rely on signature verification, like mail-in voting, tend to disadvantage [young people](, [the elderly](, and [racial minorities](, who more often get flagged for having inconsistent signatures. What’s next? Sign up to find out. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( Sponsored by [Quartz Weekly Obsession] Signatures June 29, 2022 A sign of the times --------------------------------------------------------------- People have been using special characters to mark their identities for over 5,000 years. But the way we sign our names is constantly changing. Over the millennia, we’ve etched symbols into clay tablets, marked documents with personalized stamps, dipped ornate rings into hot wax, and scribbled incomprehensible cursive at the bottom of our checks. Today, signatures are changing once again. As we shift from paper documents to digital record-keeping, pen and ink are being replaced by credit card chips, encryption protocols, and fillable PDFs. Soon, the handwritten signature you practiced in grade school may be obsolete. Don’t mourn them. Writing our names in cursive was never a very reliable way to verify our identities. Systems that rely on signature verification, like mail-in voting, tend to disadvantage [young people](, [the elderly](, and [racial minorities](, who more often get flagged for having inconsistent signatures. What’s next? Sign up to find out. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( By the digits [20%:]( Share of UK adults who said they didn’t have a consistent signature in a 2018 survey [750,000:]( Ballots rejected in the 2016 and 2018 US elections because of signature discrepancies [74.3%–96.7%:]( Range of estimated accuracies for signature verification algorithms [$9.8 million:]( Auction price for George Washington’s signed copy of the US constitution, the most expensive autograph ever sold [$1.3 billion:]( Value of forged checks cashed in the US in 2020 [4.7 inches:]( Width of Continental Congress president John Hancock’s signature on the US Declaration of Independence in 1776, considerably larger than everyone else’s, the smallest being 0.6 inches wide Giphy EXPLAIN IT LIKE I’M 5! Signatures go digital --------------------------------------------------------------- Across the economy, physical signatures are being replaced by electronic signatures. Any way you mark your identity online [counts as an e-signature](, including drawing your name in cursive with your finger on an iPad and typing your name at the end of an email. In many jurisdictions, including the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, these carry the same legal weight as inking your name on a paper contract. When people send emails or organizations publish official documents, they typically also include [digital signatures](, which are a subset of e-signatures that rely on secret, encrypted codes to verify that a message hasn’t been intercepted and tampered with. These are [much harder to forge]( and much easier to verify than handwritten signatures. In places where physical signatures still linger, they’re losing their relevance. Banks, for instance, no longer employ rooms full of people to [carefully scrutinize the signatures]( at the bottom of checks. Instead, they [spot fraud by using algorithms]( to detect unusual patterns in their customers’ spending habits. Some companies and governments have tried to go a step further. Countries including [India](, [Kenya](, and [Mexico]( have attempted to create national biometric ID systems, which would allow citizens to verify their identities with an iris scan or fingerprint. (These efforts have faced [stiff legal challenges]( from privacy advocates.) Meanwhile, crypto enthusiasts believe records stored on public blockchains can [render signatures entirely obsolete](. Sponsored by EY Reframe your future with EY --------------------------------------------------------------- Is your strategy tied up in business as usual or tied to your ambitions? Find out how EY together with its strategy consultancy EY Parthenon can help reframe transactions, transformation and technology so ideas and implementations are interwoven to realize your ambitions.[Advertisement][Discover more]( Fun fact! Christopher Columbus invented [his own strange signature]( featuring a mysterious arrangement of Greek and Latin characters, which he directed his heirs to adopt as their own after his death. No one is quite sure what it means. Brief history [3100 BCE:]( A Sumerian clay tablet bears the mark of the scribe Gar Ama, one of the earliest known examples of a person using symbols to record their identity. [7th century BCE:]( The Book of Jeremiah documents Jewish landowners using signatures to ratify real estate deals. [7th century CE:]( The Quran records the Prophet Muhammad using a personal seal to sign his letters and forbids Muslims from forging other people’s seals. [11th century CE:]( Christian bishops begin enclosing official documents with personalized wax seals as a form of signature. The practice would later catch on with wealthy Christians. [1677:]( In England, the Statute of Frauds requires contracts to be in writing and bear a signature, making signatures a standard way to validate agreements. This custom spread across the growing British empire and across Europe, as more people became literate. [1869:]( The New Hampshire supreme court case Howley v. Whipple establishes that agreements transmitted via telegram count as a signed contract in the US. [1942:]( Robert De Shazo develops the first commercially successful autopen, a machine that can automatically write a person’s signature, for the US Navy. The devices quickly gain widespread use throughout US federal agencies, Congress, and the White House. [1997:]( Fax machine sales peak and begin a long, slow decline; the obsolete technology hangs on, in part, because of [the need to physically sign paper documents](. [2000:]( In the US, the E-Sign Act gives contracts signed electronically the same weight as contracts recorded with ink and paper. US president Bill Clinton signs the bill into law both electronically and with a pen. [2020:]( Shares of the electronic signature company DocuSign soar as the business world shifts to remote work during the pandemic. (The stock [later crashes]( as the pandemic wanes and workers return to the office.) Quotable “It makes no difference whether operator writes with a steel pen an inch long attached to an ordinary penholder, or whether his pen be a copper wire a thousand miles long. Nor does it make any difference that in one case common record ink is used, while in another case a more subtle fluid, known as electricity, performs the same office.” —The 1869 New Hampshire Supreme Court decision in Howley v. Whipple, the first legal ruling to establish that deals made via telegram are [just as binding]( as contracts signed by hand. Sponsored by EY Reframe your future with EY --------------------------------------------------------------- Is your strategy tied up in business as usual or tied to your ambitions? Find out how EY together with its strategy consultancy EY Parthenon can help reframe transactions, transformation and technology so ideas and implementations are interwoven to realize your ambitions.[Advertisement][Discover more]( Pop quiz Uneven pressure, large capitals, and rising lines indicate... The signer is pridefulThe signer is ambitiousThe signer is cruelThe signer is erotic Correct. Approved. Incorrect. The cruel use heavy pressure, the prideful are known for ornamentation, and the erotic are partial to inky loops, according to graphologists. If your inbox doesn’t support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email. Person of interest History’s greatest forger --------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Hofmann was a murderer, a mail bomber, and one of the most financially successful forgers of all time. He made [more than $2 million]( in the 1980s selling counterfeit documents with forged signatures from historical figures like Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, and Abraham Lincoln. But Hofmann, a lapsed Mormon, [took special delight]( in forging documents to scam the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS). Hofmann began his criminal career in 1980 when he forged a [19th-century transcript]( that offered historical “proof” of a key tenet of Mormon theology. The LDS Church praised Hofmann’s discovery and bought the forgery for $20,000. Over the next five years, Hofmann “discovered” dozens more Mormon documents and sold them to the LDS Church. Occasionally, Hofmann [blackmailed the church]( with forged documents that contained embarrassing details about its founders. After selling the documents to church elders, who quickly hid them, Hofmann would leak word of the documents to the press to create a scandal. By 1985 Hofmann was starting to raise suspicions. To cover his tracks, he [mailed bombs to silence associates]( who might reveal his forgeries. He killed two people, injured a third, and then severely injured himself with a bomb he apparently planted in his own car to confuse the police. He was eventually caught, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison where, in a poetic twist of fate, his right arm was paralyzed, permanently disabling the hand he used to forge signatures. YouTube Watch this! The last place your signature still matters --------------------------------------------------------------- Validating signatures can be quite difficult, even for trained experts and advanced algorithms. In most cases that no longer matters. But, as Cheddar explains, a wonky signature can still stop people from voting in countries like the US. Giphy Poll Do you have a consistent signature? [Click here to vote]( Yes. I’ve practiced and perfected a pristine autograph.No. It changes depending on the situation, my mood, and the position of the stars.Who knows? I just scribble a squiggle and call it a day. 💬 let's talk! In last week’s poll about [meme stocks](, most of you (73%) said that you haven’t invested in them, but 13% of you are into the bets. 🤔 [What did you think of today’s email?](mailto:obsession%2Bfeedback@qz.com?cc=&subject=Thoughts%20about%20signatures%20&body=) 💡 [What should we obsess over next?](mailto:obsession%2Bideas@qz.com?cc=&subject=Obsess%20over%20this%20next.&body=) 🎲 [Show me a random Obsession]( Today’s email was written by [Nicolás Rivero]( (signed), edited by [Morgan Haefner]( (sealed), and produced by [Julia Malleck]( (delivered). 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