10. Read the text and answer the questions. Translate the text. Signing off

One night in August last year, while I slept, I was burgled and my identity stolen: two passports, driving licence, Mastercard, American Express card, ATM and cheque-guarantee card; even the ur-document of my existence, my birth certif­icate, had gone.

It took more than a month, much form-filling and about $150 to reconstruct my identity. But I can’t honestly say the restoration process was hard. After my rage and anxiety died down, I realised I still had the essential components of identity in modern Britain: I had my face, a unique home address, and most of all, I had my signature, that idiosyncratic sequence of strokes, squiggles and flourishes, honed over the years, as the ultimate mark of personal identity confirming to waiters, bank cashiers, shop assistants, mortgage lenders and marriage registrars that I was, indeed, me.

That was how it seemed. I realise now that, of all the attributes of personal verification, the signature was the least important. Verifiers don’t want your sig­nature any more. They want photographs, certified by people who know you; they want letters addressed to you from big firms such as British Telecom; they want your mother’s maiden name; they want your credit history; they want fingerprints, iris patterns, DNA samples, Pin numbers, codes, passwords. Your signature, no matter how beautiful and illegible, is just too easy to forge.

The pen-and-paper signature is dying. It may soon be dead. As of May 25 [2000], with the passing of Electronic Communications Act, digital signatures on digital documents have the same legal status in Britain as pen signatures on paper ones.

A digital signature can be as simple as your usual pen-and-ink signature scrawled with a stylus on a pressure-sensitive pad. It can mean a unique natural body at­tribute, such as the face, iris or finger, electronically scanned at the entrance to a secure building.

It worked like this. You, the citizen-consumer, with your internet-enabled PC, apply to a company such as the Royal Mail’s subsidiary, Viacode, which styles itself “the first commercial independent trusted third-party service”. In the age of e-commerce, it will be necessary to buy a little trust from a third party before anyone else will trust you. Viacode carries out a series of background checks to ensure you are who you say you are - “tougher than applying for a passport,” says a company consultant - and, if you really are you, sends you the signature software. You are ready to date and “sign” forms and emails with your unique digital signature. The recipient can be sure it really is you by checking with Viacode.

The written signature is a modern invention. Apart from King Alfred, the first English king who could sign his name was King John, but he didn’t sign the Magna Carta, he affixed his seal to it, the preferred method of authenticating a document for centuries. Even now, important documents are sealed as well as signed.

“You start to get people writing their own names at higher levels of society from the mid-14^th century on,” says Professor Andrew Prescott, an expert on historical documents from the British Library. “But signatures only started to become important as a means of verification from the 17^th century onwards.”

Can handwriting survive as a form of communication, as an art or a skill? Instinct suggests it will be centuries before people stop writing letters and post­cards to each other, signing off with as much flair and as many loops as ever. Yet the spread of email, phones and short text messages on mobiles is squeezing hand­writing into a smaller and smaller realm of time and popularity.

(3024)

1. Choose the best answer to these questions.

1. According to Andrew Prescott, written signatures

1. are a very old invention.

2. became widely used at the time of King John.

3. were only important for verification from the 17^th century.

4. became very common in the mid-14^th century.

2. According to the writer of the article, signatures

1. stay the same throughout most people’s lives.

2. are too irregular to meet modern standards of tecknology.

3. are more reliable than fingerprints.

4. are difficult to copy.

3. The writer of the article thinks

1. passwords are a useful idea.

2. people will soon stop using handwriting .

3. signatures are now a thing of the past.

4. people won’t stop writing postcards for a long time.

2. Use the words in brackets to create new words that will fit in the gaps.

For example: Handwriting will survive as a means of communication (communi­cate) for many years.

1. Passwords are now an important means of (verify).

2. Professor Prescott has studied many (history) documents.

3. Large numbers of documents can create (store) problems for banks.

4. The written (sign) became important 400 years ago.

5. Banks now require passwords for most (finance) transactions.

6. It is (potential) dangerous to tell someone your bank password.

7. Handwriting is declining in (popular).

3. Answer these questions.

1. What happened to the writer of the article last year?

2. How long did it take to restore his identity?

3. Why aren’t signatures important any more?

4. Give two examples of personal verification that are required nowadays.