Quote:
Originally Posted by BWinmill
I have to agree with tompe. Scientific papers often go through multiple revisions, particularly if they're being published in a journal, so the signature is a good way to ensure that you're reading the version that you think you're reading. It can also be used to ensure that you're reading an authorized (i.e. not necessarily final, but at least unmodified according to the authors) version of the article. It can protect from randomized corruption, but chances are that randomized corruption would either be rejected by the renderer (if programmed properly) or rejected by the user (if reading carefully).
|
Thanks. That's a fair point, but I guess I've never worried about that since virtually all the papers I read come from sites such as JSTOR, where one can be reasonably certain that what one is reading is the "original". But I see the value of what you're saying.