[tqwhite]

I had a document notarized and was amazed that the person only did the signature page. I could have easily swapped out the entire contract. I do not understand this. At least a digital signature let's you know what document was signed by a person you have no idea about.

What we really need is a human notary that digitally signs a document that is scanned and printed with a QR sort of notarization on each page.

[quesera]

Signatures are also only on the signature page.

This has always struck me as a fatal flaw, and yet in practice it seems to never be a problem.

I don't know what to make of this. The easily-drawn conclusions (power of law, ambient human honesty) from these conflicting ideas feel inadequate.

[ghaff]

Basically anything is a compromise.

Notaries are essentially a (relatively) low-friction compromise between just trusting that the person who put some squiggles on a piece of paper is who you think they are and that person traveling to a lawyer's office (or a brokerage etc.) that may be in another state.

Same way you can hopefully get a locked computer account restored without traveling to a Google office in Mountain View between 1 and 2pm on a Thursday to make your case with multiple forms of ID.

The rigor depends on the transaction but usually it's chosen to be a reasonable compromise.

To the specific example of a contract etc., presumably the lawyer has a copy of the original document and that's probably considered canonical in the case of a dispute. There can be edge cases obviously but there are edge cases with everything.

[tqwhite]

I tried to get the guy to notarize all of the pages. He didn't want to and I gave up. So weird that this critical function is so obviously broken.

[LinuxBender]

the person only did the signature page

I have witnessed that as well. I made them scan the documents again. It doesn't even have to be a major change in a document to change the context entirely. Sometimes just changing and to or, or our to your can drastically change the agreement. That is easy for a busy lawyer to miss.

[ghaff]

All a notary is doing is validating that the person signing a document has a government-issued photo ID that matches the name under a signature line. Nothing more than that.

[LinuxBender]

Agreed, though there are copies of the documents made and given to all parties. If a document is changed after being notarized it can be proven in court what the original documents contained. A real notary will be tracking the number of pages, making copies of all of them and signing off what they witnessed. Everyone gets the signed copies and everyone provides their ID in person. A full chain of custody is simply not possible using internet based services with current technology.

[ghaff]

I'm pretty sure when I've gone to a notary in Massachusetts, they've just checked ID, witnessed a signature, stamped the document, and made a notation in a log book. I'm pretty sure they've never made a copy of anything. There is something called a Medallion Signature though which perhaps involves more.