[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: XML for forms
Gavin, >Determining admissible evidence is clearly outside the scope of responsibility of an e-forms vendor. :-) This reminds me of the argument that cigarette manufactures don't need to worry about the cancer that their cigarettes cause -- a specious argument, but one that made them wealthy for many years. :-) Obviously it is the responsibility of a vendor to ensure that their users are getting solutions that they need. The simple fact is that any document used in conducting business becomes part of an audit trail that must be sound if organizations are to protect themselves. Why should an e-forms vendor be less responsible for this than, say, a vendor of printed checks or multi-part forms? >It requires that content (data) and the context (presentation) be signed, but fusing the data content and the presentation together isn't necessary; and it is very costly on a number of levels. This sounds like an "e-forms vendor's" opinion on legal-related issues to me. Hmmn. Some legal experts wouldn't agree with your assessment. For example: "Historically, capturing and maintaining over time all of the major elements of the business transaction includes: 1) the data (the content), 2) the reason for the transaction (the context), and 3) some or all elements of the visual and interactive presentation of the transaction (the structure). This has been deemed to be increasingly important as the value of electronic transactions increases. For transactions in the tens or hundreds of dollars, the risk of loss is not that significant. Therefore, the requirement to retain every element of detail may not be as critical for regulatory compliance or for discovery and litigation. However, as the value of the transaction, or the value of the information that is part of the transaction, increases to the hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars, the details retained can be tantamount to winning or losing." The full text is available at: http://www.cohasset.com/comm_forms.html if you are interested in more information. Barclay ============================================ Barclay Blair -- Industry Relations UWI.Com -- The InternetForms Company v: 250-479-8334 x161 fx: 250-479-3772 barclay@u... www.uwi.com ============================================ -----Original Message----- From: owner-xml-dev@i... [mailto:owner-xml-dev@i...]On Behalf Of Gavin McKenzie Sent: Monday, July 05, 1999 1:06 PM To: 'Tim Bray'; David Megginson; xml-dev@i... Subject: RE: XML for forms Tim Bray writes: > Emulating paper isn't the issue; making the transaction admissable > as evidence is. Determining admissible evidence is clearly outside the scope of responsibility of an e-forms vendor. :-) > That is why XFDL for example insists on including > in the form document all the presentational information and so on - > the claim is that you have to digitally sign not only the answers to > the questions but the questions and how they were presented to the > user, in order to achieve the goal of non-repudiation. (Mind you, > this should be done using CSS or flow objects rather than with > custom tags as XFDL did). Sign yes. Include no. It requires that content (data) and the context (presentation) be signed, but fusing the data content and the presentation together isn't necessary; and it is very costly on a number of levels. Simply including a fingerprint of the presentation as part of the data signing is sufficient. Nothing more is achieved by choosing to store or incorporate the presentation with the data or vice-versa. > > As a legal illiterate, I'm not sure what the real state of play is > here - but I still think that a list of context-free name/value > pairs is a pretty shaky basis for a legally binding transaction. -T. True. Hence why incorporating the presentation as a participant in the signature is so important. But also recognize that not all forms require such a heavy hand of security. Many forms are used in (closed) environments with a higher level of trust. Other forms are simply 'worksheets' that facilitate the data entry of data which is completely self-describing and can be signed on its own. Some processes do not need to sacrifice the particular aspect of flexibility that is lost when signing data in concert with presentation -- the flexibility lost is that the data won't verify in another presentation...this of course is the primary feature of including the presentation in the signature, but in some usage contexts this feature is undesirable. xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@i... Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ and on CD-ROM/ISBN 981-02-3594-1 To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; (un)subscribe xml-dev To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; subscribe xml-dev-digest List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@i...) xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@i... Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ and on CD-ROM/ISBN 981-02-3594-1 To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; (un)subscribe xml-dev To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; subscribe xml-dev-digest List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@i...)
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