Here are several habits, using old school methods, that will end and prevent banks and the government from stealing your signature, its value, and committing forgery and counterfeiting. The section that follows will discuss new technology for utilizing your signature and protecting it from becoming a “blank check” for bankers, businesses and the government.
This article is written specifically in response to the billions of dollars of counterfeit and forged promissory notes that have recently flooded the United States and have been used to steal American homes and wreck our economy. The problem is now solved (at least going forward). However, we need to adopt the following practices whenever entering into any promissory note arrangement, especially when it is going to be secured by a trust deed or mortgage lien against our homes
FIRST – PANTOGRAPHIC SECURITY PAPER
When you first obtain your closing documents, the first task should be to locate the promissory note and print it from the file or copy it onto the following type of paper:
This is pantographic security paper. It can be purchased in 8 ½ x 11” or 8 ½ x 14” dimensions, in 25 Lb. or 60 Lb. Bond Void Blue, Pantograph on one side, 1-up on 8.5″ x 14″ sheet. You can usually buy 250 sheets/pack and it usually has ten or twelve security features. It is also compatible with copiers, laser, inkjet and offset presses.
I will recommend one brand, but there are many more that you can find yourself. Kan’t Kopy® K2 is one-sided security paper that has 10 security features with counterfeit resistant printing to secure originals. The security features include:
● Pantograph (hidden message) – When an unauthorized person tries to copy or scan the original, a “Void” hidden message appears.
● Color Match – The original color of Kan’t Kopy® paper can not be reproduced with any type of copy process.
● Kan’t Kopy® Artificial Watermark – An artificial watermark is manufactured onto the paper.
● Anti-Copy Coin Rub – Watermark on the back turns black when rubbed with a coin.
● Erasure Protection – Guards against erasing/modifying and scanning.
● Acid Free – Preserves documents for a longer period of time.
● Toner Grip – Enables ink from your printer to stick to the paper without it flaking or smudging.
● UV Paper Dull – Ultraviolet light will not brighten the paper.
● UV Paper Glow – Paper has embedded security fibers only visible under ultraviolet light.
● Chemically Reactive – Spots will appear if chemicals are used in an attempt to alter a Kan’t Kopy® document.
You can find more information and similar products at https://www.blanksusa.com and search the Internet for “pantograph security paper”.
In security printing, void pantograph refers to a method of making copy-evident and tamper-resistant patterns in the background of a document. Normally these are invisible to the eye, but become obvious when the document is photocopied. Typically they spell out “void”, “copy”, “invalid” or some other indicator message.
Void pantographs work by exploiting the limitations and features of copying equipment. A scanner or photocopier will act as a low-pass filter on the original image, blurring edges slightly. It will also not be perfectly aligned with the directions of the document, causing aliasing. Features smaller than the resolution will also not be reproduced. In addition, human vision is sensitive to luminance contrast ratio. This means that if a grey region consists of a grid of very small dark dots the filtering will produce a lighter grey, while a region of larger dots will be affected differently (“big-dot-little-dot”). This makes it possible to see a pattern that previously was invisible. Numerous variations exist, including printing the marks using a raster of lines in one direction on a background of lines in another direction, or using fine line patterns that alias into a visible moire pattern when copied.
SECOND – EMBOSSED SIGNATURE SEAL
When you affix your signature, use blue or red indelible ink and then emboss your signature with an embossing stamp such as the one illustrated here. Be sure to emboss over part of your signature with the image you have created for your embosser seal.
I found this example at www.thestampmaker.com. It’s a desktop embosser you can customize with your own symbol or art and this gives a crisp, clear seal impression. You can send your artwork or image in one of the following file formats: tif, .pdf or .eps.
This is an example of what the embosser does to paper and the reason why it cannot be counterfeited or forged:
It costs only about $50 or $60 and ships in one business day. Use this seal to affix your custom artwork or symbol over your original signature on the pantagraph paper. If the bank ever tries to foreclose, it will be obvious that unless it has this original document, identified by your security paper and embossed and sealed signature, the bank can never foreclose.
No one can tell you what your signature must look like or how to make your signature, this freedom is what makes your signature legal and binding and worth money. You will be able to us these two practices in every note you ever sign. These two steps will eliminate the bank fraud, forgery and counterfeiting forever, we just have to pass this information around to everyone and encourage everyone to order his own security paper and embosser seal and use it at every chance.
If you can see what I see, we can use these two simple methods to end the note fraud and we don’t even need to write more laws or file lawsuits. Remember that your signature is your private property and it is worth lots of money. You have the right to decide how and when it’s used. This is your responsibility. If we act responsibly using the information in this article, we can eliminate many of the consumer debt and corrupt banking and courtroom practices that we have witnessed in recent years.
THIRD – BLOCKCHAIN
A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger, comprised of unchangeable, digitally recorded data in packages called blocks.
These digitally recorded “blocks” of data is stored in a linear chain. Each block in the chain contains data (e.g. bitcoin transaction), is cryptographically hashed. The blocks of hashed data draw upon the previous-block (which came before it) in the chain, ensuring all data in the overall “blockchain” has not been tampered with and remains unchanged.
A distributed ledger that is a consensus of replicated, shared, and synchronized digital data geographically spread across multiple sites, countries, and/or institutions.
Blockchain applications can allow multiple parties to jointly sign documents, legally binding and replacing the need to having them notarized in such a way that no one can repudiate it’s date, content or signatures.
Documents are encrypted, uploaded and their required signers selected, granting them immediate file access. Participants authenticate themselves, download, decrypt, review and digitally sign the documentation. Finally, when fully signed, documents are notarized.
It’s useful on contracts, company workflows or any paperwork between parties; but it can also be used by oneself to record immutable proofs, like digital works attribution or integrity checks.
I like to think of your “signature” as “the nature of your sign”. It is literally an expression of one’s will. It demonstrates consent, which leads me to the question for you, “When do you ever give unconditional consent to anything?” You don’t, not even in marriage. So why do we affix our signatures to terms and conditions without any terms of our own? Why do we give “blank checks” to the corporations, governments and banks? It’s because no one ever asked these questions or suggested that there was something to question about how we sign agreements or express our consent.
Your consent should have terms. You can endorse a check, such as “without recourse”. This means that when you endorse a check with this endorsement, it then requires your bank to collect against the issuing bank if the check is no good. Today, the banks won’t accept this endorsement. The banks want you to do all the work, even though the bank is making money from your account and you are paying fees.
Do you know who is using your signature once you sign documents with your doctor, or retail business, or government agency? If I told you just a fraction of what is being done with your signature, you would be fighting angry and rightly so. Banks and debt collectors pass around your documents like their playing poker at a casino, with no restrictions and no protections for your privacy or future and new obligations that are routinely created for you, just because one day in the past you expressed your unconditional consent by affixing your signature to a document with terms that a long list of attorneys probably developed over many years and in which you are expected to sign with only a moment’s cursory review. It’s time to act like a responsible adult and begin imposing terms on the use of your signature, restrict the parties who can hold or have access to the terms you sign, impose an expiration date for your signature, impose privacy terms and information management conditions with penalties for any violations. Here is an example of what I call a “Data Retention Policy” that can be ascribed to your signature as an endorsement, you simply include the phrase “with terms” above or before your signature.
This is just one example, but I wanted to walk you into this idea because the best way to use it will be when we are using the blockchain to express our agreements that are attached to our signatures on the blockchain, at an address on the Internet, with as much or little privacy as you want.
Imagine a signature with two or three factor authentication. It’s kind of like having two or three signers on a business bank account so that no one signature can authorize the release of funds. Remember, this article is about how your signature is money, you should act like it.
Each time you express your consent with your signature, whether or not your sign your name with the letters in your legal name, or your signature is a phrase or a symbol or a blockchain address, it should be guarded with security and given with conditions and it should have a value placed on it, you should place a value on each signature of yours that you use.
FOURTH – CONSENT
Many times, companies force upon us terms of service that include provisions that only protect the interests of the company. That is not a problem in itself, you want companies to protect themselves against liability, this is what facilitates them in providing products and services that we want; however, in recent years, these provisions have become so unreasonable that they are harmful to people or their customers.
One of the best examples is the “binding arbitration” clause, where you waive your rights to resolve any disputes in the court system that you pay taxes to use when you have disputes that need a resolution.
Another example includes the so-called “privacy statement”, in which nearly every one that I’ve ever read tells us what privacy we do not have and how the company can violate our privacy without penalty.
Even though these are “adhesion contracts”, meaning, “take it or leave it terms”, unreasonable or unconscionable terms are void unless you fail to object or express your option to exclude them. In other words, whether or not the contract gives you an option to “opt out” of a provision, you can opt out of a provision that is not reasonable or unfairly prejudices your interests by serving notice upon the company at an appropriate, physical mailing address, such as its registered agent, general counsel, or dispute resolution address, or all of these simultaneously.
Your “opt out” notice will simply include the date it was sent, and express your objection and intention to exclude the particular provision or clause from the agreement. You are not asking permission, you are simply placing the company on notice as to what terms you are excluding, and you don’t have to explain yourself, sometimes I do, but it’s not necessary. Be careful about creating conditions where you make a substantial change to the company’s risk, such as interfere with its obligations, you only want to be specific to what reasonably can be changed to protect your interests. Here is one example, while I usually want to opt out of an arbitration agreement, sometimes I will only change it to agreeing to “non-binding mediation” which is consistent with the intent of the agreement, but still gives me access to my court system if we don’t reach a favorable resolution of the dispute (hopefully we never have a dispute).
When you express your consent, be very careful about the terms to which you are consenting and realize that you do not always have to “take it or leave it”. These are corporations, “persons” without a conscience, we are people, we have a conscience, we have natural rights, corporations are permitted to exist by people, they are subservient to people, act like it. This is no different than parents acting like parents with their children, or the boss being the boss on the job, or the people who created government in the first place, who then provide indemnification for the business (corporation) to function in our society by providing products and services to the people who created its rights in the first place.
