B2B Integration : A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce

Internet Security 299
Message Authentication Codes (called MACs) is another mechanism
for identifying users. A MAC is an authentication tag (also called a
checksum) derived by applying an authentication scheme, together with
a secret key, to a message. However, it is not foolproof, as the receiver
can also generate these codes and misuse them.
SIGNING ON THE DIGITAL LINE
Williams Communications, an Oklahoma-based company, is an example
of how digitally signed documents can streamline business
processes.
Much of the company's correspondence consisted of sensitive
documents — from employee time sheets and performance reviews to
contracts and agreements with customers and other companies. All
these items required physical signatures to ensure their accuracy,
integrity and validity. However, gathering those signatures meant lots
of paper, slow cycles and a real loss of efficiency within the company.
The company decided to use electronic signatures — a technology
that allows digital documents to be 'signed', keeping them valid
and secure while retaining the efficiency of electronic storage and
transmission. Soon after, Williams Communications implemented two
pieces of electronic signature technology — Approvelt from Silanis
Technology and a form of public key infrastructure technology from
Entrust Technologies. The technology not only helped alleviate the
company's paper-generated internal struggles; it also paved the way
for faster and easier e-commerce interactions with customers and
business partners.
A Changing Landscape
It sounds like a fine solution to a significant problem, but there was
an issue: where a manually signed document carried force of law
behind it, digital signatures often weren't worth the virtual paper they
were written on. All that changed in June 2000, when Congress
passed the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act.
The act, effective October 1, 2000, made digitally signed electronic
agreements as legally valid as hand-signed, printed documents.
Source: Condensed from Signing on the Digital Line, CIO Magazine