Why Digital Signatures Fail - Legal Concepts for Long Term Validity in Austria, Germany and Poland

It is often believed that economic failure of electronic signatures is due to the cost of this technology, high demands on the users. and implementation difficulties. However, the main problem is probably neither technology nor implementation issues, but legal situation of cryptographic technology and discrepancy between technical reality and the model adopted by the legal systems. We analyze models of validity of electronic documents in European law and compare them with technical reality. We show that there is substantial discrepancy between legal approaches (both in theory and practice) and undeniability of electronic documents in mathematical sense. We propose some basic rules that have to be obeyed in order to guarantee compatibility of legal and technical security of electronic documents.