Sign your name across my heart

[venta]

Today's post brought me a new debit card, which means I have finally entered the world of chip and PINnery. This evening, on my way out to rapper practice I bought some petrol, ceremonially typing my PIN in for the first time.

Chip and PIN seems to have become very widespread very quickly, and I don't doubt that soon it'll only be tiny little backwater shops which don't have the kit to do it.

Security considerations aside, I don't like it. I'm not referring to worries that someone will capture my PIN, and spend all my money. It's just that at that irrational, stomachy level where I'm allowed to behave like a three-year-old I don't like it.

The provision of a four digit code is very impersonal. It could be anyone typing in that number - even another machine. Although my PIN might be just as secure (or more so) than my signature, my signature was mine. And, within reason, I'm the only one who can provide my signature.

Tapping in a code seems transient and insubstantial. Formerly, whenever I've bought petrol there has been a little piece of paper left as evidece, a receipt with my name staring blackly back at me, giving solidity to the transaction. I was vaguely surprised to find that typing in my PIN worked tonight - although I'm aware of the technology involved, somehow I didn't seem to have done quite enough to have given away thiry quid.

I rather like my signature, which is large and flamboyant and, according to amateur graphology in something like Cosmo once, indicative of generosity and optimism. When I signed my new debit card this evening, my signature ran off the top of the little white strip as it always does. Unusually, for someone older than around twenty, my signature is legible as my name; it has not devolved into a series of stylised squiggles. It only looks the same each time by virtue of long practice, of being required to write it repeatedly on forms, of having to scribble it quickly when I pause to buy something and am running late.

Some time ago, jezzidue took me to task for this. It was not a signature, he said, just me writing my name with a flourish, and as such was easily copiable. I accepted the challenge, and ten minutes later could produce a much more convincing (to the untrained eye) version of his pile-o'-squiggles than he could of my handwritten name.

It saddens me to think that my signature will now have fewer outings than it used to. For the time being, at least, it will still be required on official forms, personal cheques and as an informal endorsement that I've agreed to something. But cheques are fast going the way of the big lizardy things, and I wonder whether some PGP-variant will soon be stepping in to ensure that everyday forms filled in online can be authenticated. Already, via internet banking, I can do things which would otherwise require a signature just by typing in my password.

I might start keeping a count, over the coming months, of just how often I'm required to put pen to paper when providing my consent to something. I fear it won't be as often as once a week. I wonder how long it'll be before there is a generation of people who don't have (or need to have) a consistent and recognisable signature.

Comments

[failmaster.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I have to disagree: as someone who's spent years trying to eliminate the need to write from his life, having to scrawl my own name on bits of paper every time I want to buy something has long been one of the last unassailable bastions of graphological discontent.

Fundamentally, however impersonal Chip and PIN may be, I despise writing. Typing is fine, drawing I actively enjoy, but hand-writing is painfully slow (7wpm when I was at university had to do it regularly. Compare to my typing speed in excess of 60wpm) and painfully painful (it makes my wrist ache).

If I never have to pick up a pen again it'll be too soon.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm very magnanimous, I'm happy for these systems to exist for those who don't like wielding pencils and such.

I just wish they didn't have to be compulsory. I quite enjoy writing with a proper pen, even though my writing speed is way slower than my typing speed.

I've also never got the hang of "scribbling notes" on a computer. I'll happily make notes, draw pictures (preferably with lots of arrows) and scribble all over a bit of paper to enable me to plan my day/remember my shopping/design some software. Ask me to do the same on-screen, and I'm completely incapable.

[failmaster.livejournal.com]

I mostly agree, but if it requires diagrams then it's basically drawing, even if it has the odd caption or two. For scribbling notes that are primarily text, I'm a complete convert to the cause of the Wiki.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

For scribbling notes that are primarily text, I'm a complete convert to the cause of the Wiki.

I just use a text file - do you seriously have a wiki that you find more convenient than your text editor?

The above is actually a slight lie, in that for serious todo lists like projects at work or moving house, I move up to html. But I still wouldn't use a wiki to edit them.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

My text editor doesn't include a revision history... I wouldn't use a wiki for jotting down someone's phone number -- but for anything that's capturing ideas or is going to be progressing towards a document, I find them more useful than a plain text note.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

If this were a technology war, I'd argue that this is what CVS is for.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Now that really would be techno-overkill for this purpose ;-) I don't need to be able to annotate, branch, etc the revision history of my notes -- just to access it.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

do you seriously have a wiki that you find more convenient than your text editor

I do, even if he doesn't. Well, for some things.

The reason being that for digital notes to be like physical ones I need to be able to reach them from anywhere. That means either I plug in my USB stick and keep all my temp files on that (inconvenient and prone to me forgetting to return it to my belt) or I keep them on teh intarweb.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

If this were a technology war, I'd argue that this is what rsync is for.

For example, I keep all my personal email on teh intarweb, but the protocol that I choose to use to access it doesn't involve a wiki.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Well you're right in a way - rsync also does the required job.

Still, it does it less well for my purposes. It leaves multiple copies lying around, needs to be run before I switch off the machine I was working on and isn't a standard fixture of every machine I may run across on my travels (which these days a web browser is).

(Email doesn't do the right job at all, but I assume you weren't trying to imply it did.)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Wiki ?

I'm just about familiar (I think) with how Wiki works, but unless I've misunderstood quite a lot that seems like overkill for notes. How on earth do you use it ?

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

The great thing about a wiki vs a vanilla HTML doc, for keeping / evolving notes, is that it preserves (and can readily tell you about) its revision history, and allows easy reinstatement of earlier versions.

This is good if, like me, you change your mind a lot and have a very poor memory.

I started using wikis for collaborative work (where they're invaluable) a wee while ago, but have since started using them for my own work too and found them v useful.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Not all wikis keep revision histories - as far as I know the defining characterstic is just "a globally writable web page". Which flavour wiki do you recommend?

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I'm currently using PMwiki (PHP-based) for my own business stuff, although at Red Emperor (RIP) we used Kwiki (Perl-based). Both are at the lightweight end of the scale, but have all the features I need.

[davefish.livejournal.com]

I've found that if I try to type and think at the same time then writing suffers. Quite often now, if I am writing somethign difficult and technical I'll write it out first on paper, and then copy it into the computer. Especially true where there are diagrams or equations involved, since they are a lot more hassle to get into an electronic format.