Bulletin Board

Getting In on the E-Signature Game

Over the centuries, signatures have come in many forms, from a simple mark to a copperplate John Hancock to the imprint of an intricately carved ivory seal. Now the U.S. Congress has added "electronic sound, symbol, or process" to the list.

That's how electronic signature is defined in the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act, which went into effect on October 1. In principle, the term's broad definition means that signing one's name can be as simple as sending an E-mail or pressing 1 on a Touch-Tone phone. But companies doing business online could opt for more sophisticated technologies should they desire a higher level of security and comfort.

Anyone can create digital signatures using common desktop applications, such as Microsoft Outlook, Netscape Communicator, and Adobe Acrobat. While those signatures are images, Montreal-based onSign, a unit of Silanis Technology, offers free software for script aficionados that embeds a digital signature in the image of a user's handwritten name.

A digital signature operates by matching two "keys" -- very large numbers used to encrypt information. You use your private key to generate a signature. You then send (or store online) a digital certificate containing your public key with each signed document. The certificate explains who you are to the document's recipient, and the public key allows him or her to verify your signature. If the keys don't match -- or if the document has been altered since you signed it -- the verification attempt will fail.

In many simple digital-signature programs, users issue their own certificates. That method may be adequate among correspondents who know one another, explains Lisa Pretty, executive director of the PKI Forum, a public-key-technology industry group. If additional security is necessary, companies such as Dallas-based AlphaTrust Corp. can fill the breach by issuing users a digital ID that allows the recipient of their documents to verify their identities and validate their electronic signatures.

In the end, ensuring 100% validity when it comes to digital identities may not be possible. But signature verification in the paper world isn't foolproof either, says Rick Lane, director of E-commerce and Internet technology at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "There's no difference," he says. "Those concerns don't change." --Mary Kwak

The E-Sign Law: Just the Facts

• Electronic signatures and records have the same legal validity as handwritten signatures.
• No one can be required to use or accept electronic signatures or records.
• States can preempt the new law by adopting the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (which is technology neutral) or by enacting laws that similarly do not specify which technologies qualify as electronic signatures.
• The Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act does not apply to certain documents, including wills, divorce papers, and court orders.

Source: Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act.

High-Wired Competition

As recently as five years ago, nothing in New York City symbolized the financial ruthlessness of the 1980s more than a vacant building at 55 Broad St., just west of the New York Stock Exchange.

Once the home of Drexel Burnham Lambert Group Inc., the 400,000-square-foot structure sat empty for five years after the giant securities firm collapsed into bankruptcy, in 1990. Desperate to find tenants, the Rudin Management Co. upgraded the building by installing state-of-the-art wiring, then offered the space to high-tech start-ups at bargain rates.

From the start, Rudin Management executives insisted they were creating a community, a place where creative entrepreneurs could "cross-pollinate." John Gilbert, Rudin's chief operating officer, says tenants cooperate in a variety of ways, from embarking on joint ventures to sharing ideas and services.

Ultimately, that's how it worked for Thomas Pennell, CEO of Pennell Venture Partners, which has been a tenant at 55 Broad St. for more than four years. Initially, he says, he didn't interact much with his neighbors, mostly other struggling start-ups. More recently, though, the building has attracted bigger, better-known technology companies; as a result, Pennell says, he's done some deals with his workplace neighbors and expects more to follow.

But other people get a little nervous about working side by side with potential competitors. Rudin Management "put a nice spin on it," says Charles Smith-Semedo, CEO of NewMedia Technology Corp., based at 55 Broad. But in Smith's opinion, any serious networking happens outside the front door. "When you get on the elevator, everybody stops talking," he says.

Meanwhile, even the most community-minded businesses watch their neighbors for signs of failure. When one Internet start-up directly below Pennell's space failed, the venture capitalist says, "we just took their furniture and wished them well." --Anne Stuart

Healthy Skepticism for ASPs

Application service providers (ASPs), software companies that manage data for you on the Web, are struggling to convince small-business owners that the ASP model is a secure one.

Now Accpac, a subsidiary of Computer Associates, has started one of a few partner programs in which accounting firms host Accpac applications on their Web sites. Through those programs, small-business owners can begin using the ASP offerings through companies they already know and trust.

Another small-business anxiety: even though the whole point of the ASP model is that it allows data to live anywhere, many CEOs want their data to remain physically close to home. So Accpac has built regional data centers. CEOs "like it that their data is in a building they can drive to, surrounded by fences and guard dogs," says Robert Lavery, vice-president of strategic alliances for Accpac, only half joking.

And small-business owners are absolutely right to be wary, says Joseph Fuccillo, a senior vice-president at Xand Corp., a Hawthorne, N.Y., company that provides hosting hardware and services to ASPs. "If you're going to outsource any business-critical data, you should go see the facility and make sure it's not in someone's garage," he says. --Jill Hecht Maxwell

Things We Love

Pat O'Neill's monthly mailings to prospective new accounts were getting a little stale. Her solution: CD-ROM business cards.

First she filmed a three-minute commercial for O'Neill Benefits Group Brokerage, her four-employee benefits-intermediary business in Boulder, Colo., and sent it to Microbizcard Inc., of Toronto, which burned it onto CDs the size of business cards. O'Neill paid about $2 per disc, though Microbizcard has since dropped its prices to $1.50 per unit with a purchase of 500 discs.

Microbizcard offers the discs in the customer's choice of 12 standard shapes, such as squares and ovals, or cuts them into custom designs, such as a pair of boxing gloves or a can of soda.

CD-ROM business cards have been around for about three years. What's new, says Microbizcard vice-president Dionne Skinner, is that the cards can now hold all kinds of multimedia goodies and even have E-commerce capability.