I am looking for a software product which will allow me to have people
electronically "sign" a document over the internet. I am familiar with
only one product: the PRONTO
server by AlphaTrust [http://www.alphatrust.com/]. This
seems quite remarkable... I would expect some of the major Digital
Certificate providers or other computer security companies to offer
competing products.

Can you find at least 3 companies which offer electronic signature or
digital signature products (which is NOT the same as digital
certificates).

Hello!

Looking about for companies offering service similar to PRONTO yielded
the following results:

CIC - The Communication Intelligence Corporation
[http://www.cic.com/home.asp]  bills its products as "The Power to
Sign Online.  They offer several electronic signature and signature
capture products, including "iSign", which allows for binding
electronic signatures created with any device, including mouse, Palm
and pen tablet.  The company suggests this application for use in such
transactions as receipts, loan documents, contracts and insurance
forms, or any document where a physical signature may be required.
[http://www.cic.com/products/isign/]

Silanis [http://www.silanis.com] states that they have been providing
electronic signature solutions to banks and the government for a
decade.  They offer a range of products as well, from a "zero
download" signature solution for loan origination documents
[http://www.silanis.com/products/approveit_web_server/index.asp], to
collaborative signature software for business associates
[http://www.silanis.com/products/pro-collaboration/index.asp] that
uses e-mail to exchange binding signature documents.

Lexign (formerly eLock) provides a number of digital signature
services, including an electronic signature tool for web forms called
Lexign WebSigner.  The product is designed to work across all
platforms, and is said to eliminate incompatibility issues through the
use of a small client application that is stored on your PC.
[http://www.lexign.com/products/lexign_websigner.htm]

(Lexign also offers Lexign ProSigner, which is designed for electronic
signatures for documents created on your desktop.  The ProSigner fully
integrates with Word, Excel and AdobePDF applications.  Not precisely
an online signature tool, but interesting nonetheless.
[http://www.lexign.com/products/lexign_prosigner.htm])

I also located a list of electronic signature solutions companies,
some of which are already described above (my apologies for the long
URL):
[http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Business_to_Business/Computers/Security_and_Encryption/Software/Digital_Signatures/]

Thank you for your inquiry!  I had fun researching this question for
you!

Best regards, 

missy-ga

This was an excellent answer -- a topic which I felt was quite
technical and specific, and on which I had personally spent 2 hrs
researching without uncovering much of anything. Excellent work!

Hi,

The  following book has more information on your topic: "e-business
and e-commerce how to program" :
http://vig.prenhall.com/catalog/academic/product/1,4096,013028419X,00.html

Sorry, I don't have the book handy, as I had borrowed it from the
public library a while ago, but I remember that there was extensive
information with references to other readings on digital signature
solutions.

Michael

You can produce and verify digitally-signed documents using Gnu
Privacy Guard, a complete and free replacement for the old PGP
product. See http://www.gnupg.org/.

Thawte (http://www.thawte.com) (owned by Verisign) will issue free
X.509 for personal use.  These certificates chain back to a CA
(certificate authority) that most browsers and e-mail clients trust by
default.  The only catch is your name is not in the certificate unless
you get validated through their "Web of Trust" (which may or may not
have fees associated with it, depending on your area.)

Here is another company (ARINC) that currently provides Online Digital
Signatures to the FAA (specifically for electronic documents).

http://www.arinc.com/cgi-bin/digsig/main.cgi

Unfortunately, gnupg.org and www.thawte.com are both dealing with
digital certificates, not the process of creating a legally binding
signature online. The book from prenhall.com would help me to code it
myself, but wouldn't find me a company offering it. The www.arnic.com
reference sounded useful, but it was down when I tried it... I'll try
it again another time. Thanks again, though to everyone who made an
effort to help here -- I really appreciate it!

I spent well over 40 hours researching different digital signature
solutions and the only one I found that met my needs was from
InfoMosaic.  All others I found that allowed signing my own ASP.NET
generated web pages required that I use either their workflow software
or that I require the user to use email.  InfoMosaic was much simpler
and much much cheaper.  See http://www.infomosaic.net/

-Erik

I just stumbled over your question and --- funny enough -- there's a
chance that we have the product you are looking for :-)

Here's some marketing info on it:

--- cut ---
Guarantees legally binding digital signatures
The validity of contracts and forms depends on a signature – now
available for Internet-based procedures too.
Taking into consideration various security needs, SecuForm generates
legally binding digital signatures - for example, based on SmartCards,
other hardware tokens or software-based keys. This is the easy and
simple way to make contracts and forms secure and binding with added
protection through encrypted data transfer. As the processing of the
signature and the document is split, SecuForm enables the optimal
integration into existing workflows.
SecuForm supports international standards and interfaces and is
suitable, thanks to its interoperability, equally for integration into
large IT environments as well as for use with mobile devices.

--- cut ---

The other one might come in handy as well:

--- cut ---
The flexible management of digital signatures
EasySign enables mobile transactions, e.g. home banking, that are
protected by digital signatures or encryption. The requested
transactions can be carried out regardless of place, from any Internet
access at all, on a computer or mobile telephone.
EasySign manages private key certificates on an independent central
server. At any time, using a web browser, an e-mail client or a mobile
device, the user has access to his private keys and is no longer tied
by location to a computer. One of EasySign’s distinguishing features
is an intuitive handling, which offers the user mobility and a high
level of security for his transactions through password protection.
--- cut ---

If this sounds interesting to you, you'll find contact information at

http://www.guardeonic.com

regards,
/TDK

You might like to try our companys' products.

See http://www.voiceprove.com

We make a digital signature product that can be used to sign any
document. You can also limit the recipients if needed and expire it.

www.ntru.com