[rprasad]

I flagged this before and I am going to flag this again: this service is not legal in any state except Virginia and will not satisfy the in-person verification requirements of any state (except Virginia, which does not require in-person verification of identity). This does not mean the service is illegal; it simply means that this service cannot be used for any legal purposes in any state or federal jurisdiction (except Virginia).

There is a reason this service is not, nor will it ever be disruptive--it does not address the core underpinnings of the notary system: verification of documents and identities. Online identify verification using inaccurate third party verification databases is not sufficient to prove identity for any purposes. Holding up a document or id card to a webcam does not allow for sufficient examination by the notary of the document or card showed to prove that the document or id card is what it is alleged to be.

Indeed, this system would actually aggravate the notarization scam problem it claims to address.

Going digital does not solve every problem. Most people at HN may not realize this, but there are a lot of situations where things cannot be done through a computer.

[aisalwaysa]

You are factually incorrect, and you are a big part of the problem here.

If you are a signer, you can go online now to signnow.com, sitting at Paul Graham's desk IN CALIFORNIA and legally notarize your document. It will be legally notarized by a Virginia Notary, and your notarization is 100% legal everywhere in the US.

"The service is not legal in any state except Virginia" just means the NOTARIES must be sitting in Virginia, again, the clients can be anywhere. Interstate commerce, and the National Association of Secretaries of State have proven support for accepting other state's notarizations.

Regarding identification, you should read the law, and try signnow's service since it does NOT rely on holding up an ID card for identity. The law requires, and signnow uses, out of wallet verification questions from a third party provider to verify identity. Anything else done is above and beyond the law, and is FAR ABOVE what currently occurs with the inconsistency of pen and paper notarizations.

[lesterbuck]

I must be missing something in your comment. Because something may have legal errors in its statement, you make some wild blanket statements about what computers can do. Wow. Just wow. I could probably find thousands of similar statements before the Federal e-sign law took effect.

"there are a lot of situations where things cannot be done through a computer"

I hope you meant a huge "yet" in front of your ridiculous blanket statement. Or were you working in the patent office last century and thought all the inventions were finished?

Something about a little post from a new company has people flagging an entrepreneur's story. This story is of interest to me as a hacker (I have a good friend in the notary business, and he wanted me to do some integration for him with the state) and I'm sure it's interesting to many other hackers. I met another guy at Microconf doing notary services online. But because you have some universal grasp of the complex and changing legal situation, and must take it upon yourself to protect consumers from actually learning about a new way to notarize documents, the entire topic should be flagged for removal. Heaven help us all if this is what Hacker News has become...

[mchusma]

Perhaps you don't understant how bad the existing notary system is. In many states you don't need to keep even a record of the notarization (in a journal). Video evidence, multi-factor authentication, and other tools are all vastly superior.