EchoSign : Java Glossary

Adobe’s service for electronically signing PDF (Portable Document Format) and other documents. You can also embed a signature you draw with your mouse. It costs $15.00 USD per month for individuals and $20.00 USD per month for small businesses.

EchoSign is an Electronic Signature service, not a Digital Signature service. Digital signatures have a higher security standard using third party certificates to prove identity of the signer. EchoSign applies an electronic signature, but only to documents that are uploaded to the service and wholly controlled within the service.

Advantages Of EchoSign

• EchoSign is very inexpensive compared with certificate-based document signing where the certificate authority has to thoroughly research to validate each signer is who he claims to be and issue them an electronic certificate.
• Customers who don’t even have accounts with EchoSign can electronically sign documents and contracts created by EchoSign customers.
• The US and Canadian governments consider what EchoSign does as sufficient to be legally binding for contracts, equivalent to fountain pen signatures.
• Though EchoSign does not use the mathematical wizardry of public/private key cryptography certificates, it does a number of things to help verify that a document was indeed signed by whom it was claimed to be and there is no tampering.
  • In an electronic signature workflow, the signers (and sender) are never given full control over the document after it is uploaded.
  • There are log in authentications (must key a password) for all signers.
  • the sender has an option for adding a security password to the signing process that they would then communicate out of band. I.e. you telephone the person about to sign the document, and tell them a password. A forger would not know this password.
  • Electronic signatures have at least some auditable information such as the authentication to the email address the document is sent to as well as the IP (Internet Protocol) used to alter (sign) the document.
  • EchoSign supposed biometric signatures where the signer must draw their signature with a pointer device (e.g. mouse).
  • Over time, services like Facebook, Spoke, LinkedIn and such validate identity and cross link and could potentially be used to help validate. These are not currently used.
• EchoSign is more secure than FAX (Facsimile). It is pretty easy to forge a FAX signature since the quality is so poor and it is so easy to force the source.
• EchoSign supports FAX, sign and FAX back with some additional controls.
• EchoSign is 100% wind powered.

Disadvantages Of EchoSign

• The original is held in EchoSign servers and inaccessible for alteration to all parties. The signers can access their EchoSign accounts at any time to access the authoritative original on the EchoSign server. With digital signature systems, documents can be passed around freely. They don’t have to be centrally housed on a secure server. With digital signature systems, all copies are protected from tampering, not just those in a secure central server.
• EchoSign does not validate the identity of anyone, (e.g, make them present passports, birth certificates, photo ID, business licenses, letters from doctors or lawyers etc.). It just collects images of their signature drawn with a mouse or FAX ed, and emails documents to people.
• If you suspected a forgery, I would think it would be easier to prove your case with a fountain pen signature than with an electronic signature. The judge, you and your lawyer probably would not be able to understand the arguments for it being a forgery.
• All parties must have online Internet access. With digital signature systems, documents can be created and verified on secure LAN (Local Area Network)s without Internet access.

The EchoSign support people have been unusually helpful in answering my questions and reservations.