Requirements for Cryptographic Signatures as Legal Evidence

[christiansmith]

Goal

One goal of this demo is to support entering cryptographically signed JSON data and PDF document content into evidence during a mock trial. This will help to test legal and technical assumptions about the technology and establish principles that might form the basis of future development.

Use Case

We'll need a realistic use case to provide context. @dazzaji has proposed the purchase and sale of a car in the state of Massachusetts. It would be good to have a few other use cases and some real sample content.

General Requirements:

• Maintain individual possession and confidentiality of private cryptographic key material
• Create a JSON document for signing from a template or schema (defaults)
• Create a signature over a JSON document
• Create a signature over a PDF file
• Request signatures for a document
• Digitally witness or notarize a signature (bonus points)
• Share signed documents
• Verify a document's signatures
• Verify key ownership by proof of possession
• Verify key ownership when repudiated
• Verify the time of signing
• Verify transfer of funds (via cryptocurrency) agreed to in a signed document

[dazzaji]

It would be good to read over the Human Dynamics research statement for context and check out the links from that page to Legal Hackers for potential requirements or constraints related to legal evidence. It's linked from the README.md