i sign my name

we all have our personal expressions of individuality. my signature is mine and represents a pattern only familiar to me. yours is yours and i could never replicate the smooth motion behind your expression.

there are other patterns of expression unique to each of us. our signature is just the most identifiable. it is identified not by the exact image presented, but rather by the method of stroke used to create the signature. it's easy to replicate an image..much more difficult to replicate the activity that went into creating said image.

security relies on expressions unique to individuals in order to keep information safe. signatures are the age-old method of representing individuality through expression to maintain security. recently, as computers have become more prevalent, there has been a revolution in securing information relying on other unique human expression.

some of that expression is purely physical - like face recognition, eye scans, and of course fingerprint scans..i logged in to my computer just now using a fingerprint scanner. you can always think of the movies at top-secret secure facilities where employees of the government or some sinister agency have to go through a series of scans before entering an off-limits room.

but this brings to mind minority report and the black market of eyes. or a number of other films in which people dismember those with access in order to pass an eye or fingerprint scan. this is when the unique motor expression comes into play. we need some expression that shows that the individual was aware that he was approving of some action with his unique personal expression.

signatures are too easily replicable. you can't get at the actual motion and method behind the creation of the image. who's to say it isn't forgery?

recently, there have been new attempts with pattern recognition software that takes a live feed of actual human action to break down the aspects unique to the individual. voice recognition is a prime example. another method still in the test phase uses eye-tracking to recognize unique patterns of eye saccades (the twitchy bounces your eye is constantly making when taking processing the visual field). each person's eye develops its own pattern for breaking down images and sticks to the pattern it's developed for itself. this all happens unconsciously to the individual, so there is no way of mimicking it. personally, i think this is pretty nifty..but isn't so practical in most scenarios where simple security is at stake.

for now, we can stick to signatures. we each have our own and, while they are fairly easy to replicate, it is also relatively easy to dispute the replication. if it's a real official document, you get a notary to witness you in the act of signing. if it's a check, then it's your check and your signature. all is good. as technology becomes ever more present, maybe the little signature screens used at grocery stores will become more popular and will have pattern recognition software to recognize the actual process of signing. who knows if this is even necessary though..things seem to be working fine as they are.

frank abagnale jr tempted us to catch him if we could..and we did. he joined our side in catching crooks like him. now we have computers to scan for slip-ups. my signature is mine because it is an expression unique only to the motions made by my hand. yours is yours. that's something that no other can take from us and make their own.