Interview with Bernd Wild, Co-founder at intarsys AG, about PDF Days Online 2021

Excerpt: Interview with Bernd Wild, Co-founder at intarsys AG, about PDF Days Online 2021 where he speaks about digital signature validation.


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Interview

August 20, 2021
by PDF Association staff


Bernd Wild

PDF Association: At the PDF Days Online, you will be hosting a presentation titled “Validating digital signatures in PDF” – what’s that about?

Bernd Wild: It’s a little bit like a “deja vue” of the first time after the publishing of PDF/A in 2005 when we compared the validation results of different PDF/A validators and checked them against the spec. Although the spec quality of electronic signatures is quite high and detailed we often encounter deviating validation results even in cases where everything should be clear and fine. Unfortunately this does not help us with a positive customer experience. Therefore, I want to give an overview, what problem areas there are and how you could get around them. I try to propose some improvements in the specs as well.

PDF Association: Who is your presentation aimed at?

Bernd Wild: The target audience will be informed customers and users of electronic signatures. That means the people should have tried signatures in PDF before in order to get a benefit from the presentation and the use cases. I try not go too much into the technical details.

PDF Association: What will the people who attend your presentation be able to take away from it?

Bernd Wild: I hope they will get a better feeling on what various validation results mean. Especially to be able to decide whether there’s a real problem with the signature and perhaps their overall validity is questionable or whether it’s just a minor thing which doesn’t really affect the signed document.

PDF Association: The PDF Days Online has become the leading PDF event. What makes the PDF Days so unique in your mind?

Bernd Wild: That’s simple: there is nothing comparable in conferences on document technology and document standards in Europe. Given the importance of PDF as the core document format standard and the dynamic developments around this nucleus with in the last years I see a clear necessity to keep and develop further such a platform as the PDF Days.

PDF Association: Thank you! We look forward to seeing you at the PDF Days Online 2021.

Check out the overall PDF Days agenda and register for Bernd’s session.