Electronic signatures are also electronic seals. Its technology uses advanced digital technology to simulate traditional physical seals. Its management and use methods are consistent with the habits and experience of physical seals. The electronic documents stamped on it have the same characteristics as physical seals. Stamped paper documents have the same appearance, the same validity and similar usage. It can be seen that an electronic seal is by no means a simple seal image plus an electronic signature. The key lies in whether its use and management methods are consistent with the habits and experience of a physical seal. How similar the files are.

The electronic seal has the following basic characteristics:

1. New concepts such as certificates and CAs are not involved in the entire use process, and the electronic signature technology is completely hidden behind the electronic seal. , so that people can use it based on daily experience without additional learning and understanding of these difficult technologies and concepts.

2. Ensure that the seal becomes a valid expression of the signature. That is, if and only if an electronic signature technology is used to verify that an electronic document is authentic and valid, the seal will be displayed normally. In this way, we not only need to use electronic signature technology to protect the text data, but also protect the seal to prevent criminals from misappropriating it and displaying legal seals on illegal electronic documents, thereby confusing right and wrong.

3. One physical seal can only correspond to one electronic seal. On the one hand, this is in line with people's daily usage habits, and on the other hand, it also allows leaders to know how many seals there are in the general office that need to be managed based on daily experience, so as to avoid the situation of out-of-control seals flying all over the sky.

4. The electronic seal must be stored on removable media (such as USB flash drive). Such a removable medium storing an electronic seal is equivalent to a physical seal and can be kept in the same way as a physical seal. Even an ordinary office worker who knows nothing about technology can lock the stamp in the safe as before. After seeing the leader's approval and signature, he can take the corresponding stamp out of the cabinet for use, and then put it back after use.

5. In order to make the electronic documents stamped with electronic seals have the same appearance and other characteristics as paper documents, digital paper technology must be used. Digital paper technology is a technical platform built with digital technology that conforms to the characteristics of traditional paper. It not only has powerful layout description capabilities, but it can be expressed no matter how complex the layout is as long as it can be drawn on paper. More importantly, it has the layout Consistency, immutability and indivisibility. For example, although Word is very powerful, it still cannot guarantee this. Sometimes we send a 100-page Word document to others, and when the other party receives it, it becomes 101 pages. Although the content has not changed, the layout of the text, graphics, etc. has not changed. The location has changed. The non-tampering performance ensures that the sealed document will not be tampered with. Although tampering can be detected using conventional electronic signature technology, it is not as good as not allowing tampering at all. Moreover, if the text in the signed and sealed document can be modified at will, It's not in line with people's usual habits anyway. Inseparability is even more useful, as it ensures that no one can separate the seal from the document and then stamp it on another document. It can be seen that digital paper technology is an important foundation for electronic seal technology.

For any electronic seal technology, the above five requirements must be met at least, and then we can compete on this basis to see who is more in line with traditional habits and experiences. Moreover, as an advanced digital technology, electronic seals cannot stop at simulating traditional signatures and seals. They must also provide more reliable security and more powerful functions, such as seal passwords, real-time loss reporting, and support for any document format. support, intelligent connection with the backend database, etc.