04/08/96 A HANDWRITING EXPERT TO FOIL VIRTUAL FORGERS

A HANDWRITING EXPERT TO FOIL VIRTUAL FORGERS

EVERYONE WANTS TO DO business electronically, using as little paper as possible. But how does one sign on the dotted line, as it were, when a legal document exists only in digital form? It's easy enough to capture signatures in digital form, of course, but unfortunately they're just as easy to copy and forge in that form, as well.
A British company called PenOp Inc. may have discovered the solution. Using an ordinary digital writing tablet that retails for $150 or less, PenOp's software records not only the visual characteristics of an individual's signature but also various physical measurements such as the pen tip's acceleration during downstrokes. These biometric details, as they're called, are unique to individuals and are extremely difficult to forge.
Using cryptographic techniques, the software can then link a digitized signature and its biometric details to a specific electronic document in a nearly tamper-proof form. Typically, that information totals less than 2,000 bytes, or characters, of data. Later, any new signature--on a drug prescription form, for example--can be compared with an earlier record for verification. Depending on the risk involved with a particular document, the required match between old and new signatures can be held to a greater or lesser standard.
PenOp is releasing its software as a so-called plug-in for use with Netscape Communications Corp.'s Navigator, the leading Web-browser program. It also is working with the Internal Revenue Service to test the scheme for use in electronic tax filing.
EDITED BY IRA SAGER By John E. Verity