Hi Jen,
You could say that Vector signatures are "more secure"...There is nothing "secure" about image signatures. They are essentially things that make people feel good about finishing off the document. In the age of scanners and image software, they are merely quaint. If you wnat "security" to be able to verify your signature in some way, there are several options:
1. Forget about the whole curisive writing thing. Believe the "electronic signature" bit when you see an electronic document from a verified source (preferably in an encrypted file to which you have a password), and know that any 10 year-old on your street can create a paper document with your signature on it.
2. Use a portable verification key. What this means is (using Adobe for an example) you create an electronic signature file in adobe, then attach your "signature" to the file by entering your password. You then send the PDF to someone else. They open it up, but they see your adobe signature and it says "signature not verified" on it. Well, they ask you again to send your verification key...a file that adobe will produce and you can keep on your desktop. You send them the file, and they can then see that your signature has been verified. The truth is, we all get festoons of papers from other places with illegible scrawls on the bottom. We really don't care who these people are or what their qualifications are. We also never really check on the their validity...do we?
Bitmap, jpeg,vector...doesn't matter. Having a bit of code attached to the document file that can be verified only by a crypto key sent by a person that knows your password and has your signature file. Problem is, I can register a vector signature name Dr. Jennifer L. Ney right now and have a "secure vector signature" that I can "verify". No court, no no-body can actually confim or deny any signature of any kind outside of the context of an integrated organization. Obviously, if someone uses a company ID to log in and do damage somewhere, the owner of that ID is either guilty, irresponsible, or simply a victim of identity theft by someone more clever or more resourceful than he.
