[Cryptography] EFF amicus brief in support of Apple

[Ron Garret]

On Mar 5, 2016, at 8:50 AM, Allen <allenpmd at gmail.com> wrote:

> > There’s no difference between a digital signature and a regular signature.  Both have the same semantics: endorsement of the content being signed.
> 
> Well, that a huge stretch right there.  Who says a digital signature implies endorsement of the content?

Apple does.  Apple has put in significant (one might even call it extraordinary) engineering effort to create technological infrastructure in which their digital signature can be relied upon to mean: we, Apple, certify that this content is safe for you to run on your device.

> as a legal construct--which is what matters here--it consists of whatever the courts say it does.

No, that’s not true.  There is quite a bit of existing law — both common and statutory — around signatures, both digital and analog.  The courts are not free to just make shit up.  IANAL but based on what I know about the existing law of signatures it is quite clear that Apple’s digital signature meets all of the criteria for being a legal signature under both statutory and common law.  (The principal criterion for being a legal signature is that it is the intent of the signer that it be a legal signature.  This is why someone who can’t write can legally sign a document with an “X”.)

rg