Why Does A Scrawl Still Exist in the 21st Century?

This was our first week in our new Blockpass ID Lab, and we have five new PhD students starting their work on trust, cryptography and identity. At the core of our focus is to build new worlds which are more trusted, and which can be scaled into a citizen/GDPR-focused 21st Century. So let’s have a look at the old world …

When my Amazon package arrives, I have now perfected the wavy line across the screen for signing for the package (my cosine wave signature), and the delivery person takes one look at it, and smiles, and leaves. I have even given up on trying to write my name, so I often just do a straight line. Other times I will draw a saw tooth signature, but most of the time it’s a straight line. No-one ever checks your signature these days!

So what’s the point of me signing for my Amazon package? That a human received the package? If UPS asked me if it was my signature, I would say “No!”, but I’d say, “I did add a straight line there”: