We used to use an "X" with two witnesses. Then we used notaries. Then we "advanced" to using a crimp seal. Then a rubber stamp with an inked signature was enough. For the past 27 years, I've been using nothing but digital signatures. I can control a digital signature much better/easier than an ink signature any day. They are far superior. You've been using digital signatures ever since you got your first password and pin number. Been using a digital signature ever since you've used that plastic pen to sign the pad at the checkout register.
The courts and legislatures have, for a long time, recognized the use of digital signatures. We surveyors seem to be all hung up on this "original" vs "copy" issue. In the eyes of the court there is no difference. One is just as valid as another, unless there has been evidence of a forgery. Then the original that you have kept in your control, unaltered, will rule over the copy. That's your only true protection from forgery. Read through Article X of the Rules of Evidence. Using an ink pen won't make your signature any more difficult to forge with today's technology.
Print to pdf; digitally sign it; save as a flattened pdf; then email it. Hardly ever print anything anymore.
JB,
Most of the PDF programs allow you to apply a digital certificate (with a copy of your signature if you like) which will not be valid if any changes are made. No need to flatten the PDF since nobody can select the signature within the certificate. I never had that much luck with flattening anyway. As an added bonus you can do the same with CAD files.
I'm not a surveyor, I'm an electronics engineer, retired from IBM, where we manufactured integrated circuits. One of my assignments was to organize the files that we shared we sent to our design partners so they could participate in the design; each partner got a "design kit" that contained the version of each file that that partner (or project) needed. When an update was made to the technology and we had to regenerate all the design kits, and that was such a big job it took days on a high-powered workstation. I streamlined it so it only took a few hours, and incorporated some of the technology that's used in digital signatures, such as hashes (also called message digests).
Sending paper was completely out of the question; a legible diagram of a chip would have covered the earth, and you could only include a few layers and still understand it. To plot all the layers, you would need a dozen planets to lay out the drawings.
What strikes me about this discussion is the idea of converting everything to a PDF before providing it to others. From my perspective, the only reasons to convert a format with all the information, such as AutoCAD or ArcGIS, to a form that is a mere shadow of the full information, such as PDF or JPEG, are
- No one is actually going to use the information, someone just wants to file it with some official to fulfill a useless bureaucratic requirement.
- The recipient is not sufficiently skilled to understand the full information (homeowner, lawyer).
- The recipient does not have software capable of reading and using the full information.
Scenario: a design professional such as an engineer or an architect ("the designer) asks a surveyor knows the surveyor works with AutoCad and asks for the AutoCAD file, and instead, the surveyor will only provide a PDF. The designer makes a transcription error while copying from the PDF to the designer's AutoCAD file. The way the legal system works, this would probably be considered the designer's fault. But in my view, it ought to be the surveyor's fault because the surveyor refused to provide the AutoCAD file.
ashton, post: 430579, member: 422 wrote: a legible diagram of a chip would have covered the earth, and you could only include a few layers and still understand it. To plot all the layers, you would need a dozen planets to lay out the drawings.
How on earth (pun intended) did the designers design the layouts, and the fabricators implement the design?
Jim Frame, post: 430586, member: 10 wrote: How on earth (pun intended) did the designers design the layouts, and the fabricators implement the design?
The chips were made up of a relatively small number of smaller circuits (such as circuits to store one bit, logical not-or, add two 32 bit numbers). These elements would be precisely replicated on the chip; any particular small circuit might be replicated tens of thousands of times.
The placement of the smaller circuits, and the wiring connecting the smaller circuits, was automated. Human designers only intervened when the automated process got stuck, or when automated checks discovered an error.
Once the design was finished, the layout was sent to mask-making machines, which were essentially electron microscopes used in print mode rather than view mode. Making the chips was sort of like making printed circuit boards: resist is put on the chip, UV light is passed through the parts of the mask that are not opaque, hitting the chip and making chemical changes to the resist. The unwanted part of the resist is washed away (the part that remains could be the part hit by UV, or not, depending on the chemistry in use). Then the chip is dipped in chemicals. The part with no resist over it is affected by the chemicals and the part that isn't covered isn't affected. This is done over and over, in roughly 40 layers.
ashton, post: 430579, member: 422 wrote: I'm not a surveyor, I'm an electronics engineer, retired from IBM, where we manufactured integrated circuits. One of my assignments was to organize the files that we shared we sent to our design partners so they could participate in the design; each partner got a "design kit" that contained the version of each file that that partner (or project) needed. When an update was made to the technology and we had to regenerate all the design kits, and that was such a big job it took days on a high-powered workstation. I streamlined it so it only took a few hours, and incorporated some of the technology that's used in digital signatures, such as hashes (also called message digests).
Sending paper was completely out of the question; a legible diagram of a chip would have covered the earth, and you could only include a few layers and still understand it. To plot all the layers, you would need a dozen planets to lay out the drawings.
What strikes me about this discussion is the idea of converting everything to a PDF before providing it to others. From my perspective, the only reasons to convert a format with all the information, such as AutoCAD or ArcGIS, to a form that is a mere shadow of the full information, such as PDF or JPEG, are
- No one is actually going to use the information, someone just wants to file it with some official to fulfill a useless bureaucratic requirement.
- The recipient is not sufficiently skilled to understand the full information (homeowner, lawyer).
- The recipient does not have software capable of reading and using the full information.
Scenario: a design professional such as an engineer or an architect ("the designer) asks a surveyor knows the surveyor works with AutoCad and asks for the AutoCAD file, and instead, the surveyor will only provide a PDF. The designer makes a transcription error while copying from the PDF to the designer's AutoCAD file. The way the legal system works, this would probably be considered the designer's fault. But in my view, it ought to be the surveyor's fault because the surveyor refused to provide the AutoCAD file.
The maps and documents we record are the fabric of title to all privately held land. The requirements are there to ensure the integrity of the documents. Many of our Counties are just beginning to tackle the issues of electronic indexing. Digital recording is still a ways down the road. Changing a few hundred years of policy needs to be a slow process. The public deserves no less...
My .02, Tom
thebionicman, post: 430593, member: 8136 wrote: The maps and documents we record are the fabric of title to all privately held land. The requirements are there to ensure the integrity of the documents. Many of our Counties are just beginning to tackle the issues of electronic indexing. Digital recording is still a ways down the road. Changing a few hundred years of policy needs to be a slow process. The public deserves no less...
My .02, Tom
I agree that the public land records need to be permanent and trustworthy above all else. But a great deal of information that could be useful and user-friendly is made hard to use or thrown away with the current system.
For example, a recent tax sale notice says something like "Being all the same lands and premises conveyed to John Doe by Quit Claim Deed of Mary Roe dated April 2, 1999 and recorded in Book 386 Page 314 of the County of Oz". Naturally the notice is a pdf image, so the text cannot be cut and pasted. If there was a recent recorded survey of the property, the latitude and longitude were likely obtained by the surveyor, and certainly the property tax system has an approximate latitude and longitude. But heaven forbid that that information make its way to the public to help potential buyers decide if they're interested, and help the poor delinquent tax payer and the fund-strapped city get a higher price for the property.
Also, providing full design information to other design professionals is a different work flow than recording drawings in the public land records.
We've been digitally recording electronically signed and electronically approved documents in some NC counties for over a year now. We've done over a hundred so far. The signature must meet board standards and all parties signing the plat ( surveyor, owner, planning department, review officer, etc) must sign digitally. We use Docverify for signatures and Simplifile for e-recording. 3 or 4 counties around us are now accepting plats in addition to other documents for e-recording. This was possible because of the validity of the digital signatures by legislation. I think more counties, and more states will get on board with it.
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