[underbiding]

Where does the perception that signing a physical piece of paper with pen is an important part of a secure audit trail?

If a signature is meant to represent both intent and identity, what is it about the physical medium which makes it more ideal than a digital signature where you're prompted to enter in your login password or something similar?

Is it the belief that its less forgable, that electronic audit trails are more easily duped and spoofed while signature blocks and paper/pen is somehow immutable (despite the decades of forged signatures easily traced from other sources)?

Never understood this idea whatsoever, it just strikes me as a form of pearl-clutching over some nebulous hackers that could easily destroy our well-oiled pen/paper/document machines.

[IIAOPSW]

As per the article, the alternative was pencil not digital. For whatever reason the rule of the mental ward was there could only be access to pencils. Pencil marks are indeed more mutable and thus more vulnerable than pen.

Electronic signatures are an entirely different (and interesting) thing to consider.