The problem we all face (well, not all of us...) is that “digital
technologies,” as they are called here, are presented as weapons of mass
power. They give power (opening careers without digging with a pickaxe),
verified sorting and decision-making (medical diagnosis after processing
massive amounts of data), driving a car while watching a movie, digital
processing at the speed of light for banks and more generally for
accounting, and, as you say Hans, it is mainly used to serve the
unquenchable desire to “make money.” But in general, just as typography
is no longer done by hand with type cases, contractual exchanges must
not be falsified, whereas digital technology (and by extension security
algorithms) grants this power of imitation to anyone interested in the
joys of digital technology. Yesterday as today, people need this trust
that allows them to talk to each other and live together. We must
nevertheless avoid digging too many dark caves in the warm and
comfortable cave we already live in (for those who spend a lot of time
snacking in front of the television or “chatting” on TikTok...) and
remain vigilant in the face of the beautiful promises that the digital
revolution and the bureaucrats in Brussels want to place under the
Christmas tree.
Happy Xmas !
Le 18/12/2025 à 22:52, Hans Hagen via ntg-context a écrit :
On 12/18/2025 6:06 PM, Jean-Pierre Delange via ntg-context wrote:
Unfortunately, I forgot to mention that my research consisted of
reading a few pages on the Internet, notably these: 1.)
https://helpx.adobe.com/
legal/esignatures/regulations/european-union.html; this one: https://
eidas.ec.europa.eu/efda/trust-services/browse/eidas/tls; 2.) this
one:
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/sites/spaces/DIGITAL/
pages/467109076/What+is+the+legislation+-+eSignature; and this one:
https://gregbur.me/2022/04/28/deep-dive-digitally-signing-pdfs-with-
okular/.
With these things one can just relax for a while. After all, we first
have to see if the EU manages to set up the infrastructure itself
without big tech. After all it needs trust.
The dutch digi-id system was outsourced to some commercial entity that
then was bought by some investor (UK, those often have a bad
reputation here) that wo sels to another investor (USA, even worse
reputation, esp because that gov can ask demands to everything). For
me that basically removes trust in that system that we're supposed to
use so we have to see how that plays out as much communication
(country, province, city, public ornagizations) depend on it.
It's very easy nowadays to end up in conspiracy landscapes so a
signature system needs to be done right from the start. Adobe should
not even be involved in that. It's good that at least it is done as
'europe' for folk like me.
So we'll see hwo it goes. The best we can do is just handle it
technically but usage / validity is then not something we have to
worry about. It's after all just adding objects to a pdf (plus some
encryption). I get the impression that there is less hurry than these
pointed to documents suggest so no need to update overnight (during
the xmas days).
Hans
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