New : Digital Signature Functionality

Duane Gingras · 2024-05-16T16:37:37+00:00

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By and large we've started to ignore digital signature validation. It' sbecome a pain when you need to update some small clerical item like a typo. Under the archaic version of wet signatures, a clerical alteration was easily handle, you just did it. No one came around with their white-out to clear their signature and resign. So my proposal is two fold:

Allow one of the signers (doesn't matter which) to get a prompt saying "I swear on this digital book of desired religious importance that the changes made herein are of a clerical nature and have not altered the technical content in any extent from the original signing." or something along that line. The premise here is the honor system, which is still present in our digital sign off world. Not the Digital Signature has a record of someone saying, changes were made but they are acceptable.
Allow Bluebeam to auto authenticate if the % deviation is small. Signed file 3429kb, +/- 170 kb change is acceptable. of maybe less. At the end of the day we are still operating under the honor system. If the responsible agent/engineer is maliciously circumventing the system this will show up in other areas. And as I indicated we are largely ignoring Digital Signature validations.

This is my thoughts on digital signatures, which i mentioned to you before @Luke Prescott, just logging it here.

For some of our regulatory bodies, the digital id's don't show correctly so in many instances we actually convert our final deliverables to images for submission (so the stamps and signatures show correctly, this isnt' a Bluebeam issue, the regulators are using sub par viewers).

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Comments

Luke Prescott

Thanks for posting, Duane! No immediate plans for updates to digital signatures but we'll keep this in mind for future updates. fyi @George Stamatakis

Ari S Rejtman

Digital signature rules are dictated by states and governments, so the settings provided for them by Bluebeam and other companies that create programs for PDFs aren't as flexible as other tools and functions. This is why we can't change the font type for text associated with a signature among other commonly customized settings.

Bluebeam already allows signatures with subsequent markups to be allowed and displays them with the following text: "Signature is valid. The document has been updated since signed". Then, a new set of text appears: "Click to view this version". This is a "button" that contains the original signed PDF without any changes or markups made to it after it was originally signed. This "button" is also created when subsequent signatures are created on the same PDF set. This is why a digitally signed PDF doubles in size. Likewise, subsequent signatures will increase a PDF's size. Also, a new section with the text "The document has been modified" appears with a yellow exclamation mark inside of a yellow triangle. Once expanded, it shows which new markups were added after the document was signed and shows which page they're on. We can select this and navigate to the markup itself by initially zooming into the PDF and then selecting this text that reads, "Added MARKUP NAME on Page PAGE NUMBER".

The "honor system" isn't reliable and allows people the opportunity to change documents subtly and nefariously. Digital signatures can be third-party authenticated and provide credibility, accountability, and "peace of mind" when submitting official documents to municipalities. If you're referring to using "Cut/Erase Content" and "Edit Text", then it would probably take just as much time to fix the original file and not allow these tools to be potentially misused. This is why they invalidate signatures, and even attempting to use them and cancelling the command still invalidates the digitally signed PDF beyond repair.

If a digitally signed PDF isn't showing as "Valid" by the receiver, then their PC is the issue. The "Federal Common/Bridge" files expire every few years periodically based on the date that our operating system (Windows, etc.) was created on our devices. They aren't being atomically updated via Windows Update, so everyone needs to download the "Federal Common CA G2 Certificate" and the "Federal Bridge CA G4 Certificate". I hope that this is automated in the future to avoid explaining this to a building department official receiving digitally signed files. It's common for them to see the "Signers Identity Unknown" error and assume that the submitter is at fault. Both the sender and receiver need to stay up-to-date and learn about the codes and laws that their state have created to guarantee the safety of everyone's submittals.

Marco M

This discussion has been moved from Product Ideas to the Talk Bluebeam topic to gain more comments and visibility.

Ronda

Duane, I LOVE this idea! The serious situation of signing documents and attesting to their continued validity when changes occur is important and your proposal adds an element of humor in addition to the reminder. Well done!