PE Seal & Stamp

[steel]

Thanks for posting this! My manager is a Michigan PE and I reminded her to look at her stamp, but she says it already has a 10-digit number on it so she's good lol

 

[Eng_Girl95]

Question!

I just found out today I passed the PE Civil: Structural exam! I ordered my stamp, a self-inking one, and I was wondering: how do you all store your stamp when not in use? Do you lock it in a desk drawer? Do you leave it in an unlocked drawer?

I have no reason to believe anyone will take my stamp and use it fraudulently, but I want to do what i can to make sure I will never have a reason to believe that.

 

[ChebyshevII PE PMP]

Question!

I just found out today I passed the PE Civil: Structural exam! I ordered my stamp, a self-inking one, and I was wondering: how do you all store your stamp when not in use? Do you lock it in a desk drawer? Do you leave it in an unlocked drawer?

I have no reason to believe anyone will take my stamp and use it fraudulently, but I want to do what i can to make sure I will never have a reason to believe that.

I keep mine locked in a desk drawer, in a locked case. Might be slightly overkill though.

Since stamp companies have no responsibility to check your information before supplying you with a stamp, theoretically that means anyone can order a stamp with your name and license information if they have access to it.

 

[DLD PE]

I also keep mine in a locked box.

 

[leggo PE]

Mine is simply in a drawer at my office desk.

 

[Booo]

Did someone just say SIMPLY

 

[leggo PE]

HAVING

 

[DLD PE]

A WONDERFUL

 

[Dothracki PE]

NO

 

[squaretaper LIT AF PE]

Did someone just say SIMPLY

 

[squaretaper LIT AF PE]

On topic(-ish): mine is just loose in a box in a drawer somewhere. On the extremely rare occasions that I stamp things, the stamp is placed in CAD anyway. I don't know a single person who places a physical ink stamp. Who has time for that??? /s

 

[txjennah PE]

On topic(-ish): mine is just loose in a box in a drawer somewhere. On the extremely rare occasions that I stamp things, the stamp is placed in CAD anyway. I don't know a single person who places a physical ink stamp. Who has time for that??? /s

My team leader is a geoscientist and he refuses to place his stamp in CAD. It's definitely caused some issues when we're trying to get something out at the last minute, but I also get it - he can stay in control of his stamp.

I had mine converted to CAD as well. On the rare occasions I stamp something, it's the signature page of a report, so a physical stamp definitely works the best for that.

 

[Stewie]

My team leader is a geoscientist and he refuses to place his stamp in CAD. It's definitely caused some issues when we're trying to get something out at the last minute, but I also get it - he can stay in control of his stamp.

I had mine converted to CAD as well. On the rare occasions I stamp something, it's the signature page of a report, so a physical stamp definitely works the best for that.

Why did he refuse? Is he afraid someone may steal the electronic copy of his seal?

 

[txjennah PE]

Why did he refuse? Is he afraid someone may steal the electronic copy of his seal?

I think he's concerned about his seal being plopped on figures without his consent.

 

[DLD PE]

Why did he refuse? Is he afraid someone may steal the electronic copy of his seal?

This happened at my last firm and is the reason I left the company. The head of our electrical department was a non-PE (which was a problem to begin with) and he used another electrical engineer's PE seal (electronic) and applied the date to a drawing without his permission. I later found out this happened multiple times.

I do not have an electronic seal. I have a wooden stamp with the rubber seal. When the time comes to seal a drawing, I stamp a small piece of paper with the seal, physically sign and date the seal, and scan the image as a .jpg. Then I go into photoshop and convert the image into a .png file. Then I insert it into the CAD file and create PDFs of the drawings. Every project has a unique signature/date, and I keep the piece of paper with each date and my stamp in a locked box. I keep a log in Excel of every project I sign, so if there's ever a question about something I signed, I can always compare it to the image I created for that project. I know it sounds paranoid, but I have my reasons.

A while back someone claimed it would be easy to "lift" the signature and date off the .pdf and copy my seal or signature without the date. I've yet to see how someone could do that, but I suppose it's possible.

 

[Tiger15]

A while back someone claimed it would be easy to "lift" the signature and date off the .pdf and copy my seal or signature without the date. I've yet to see how someone could do that, but I suppose it's possible.

It wouldn't be too difficult to take a screenshot of the stamp, bring it into an editor like Photoshop or Gimp, and edit out the signature and date.

But that being said it would probably be easier to just create a fake stamp from scratch. Get the generic "John Q Engineer" image from the board website and edit the text.

There is no 100% foolproof security, even with a physical stamp. It's just an issue of balancing the appropriate amount of security with the necessary convenience. If someone is committed to doing bad things, you can't really stop them. The goal is to make doing bad things difficult and inconvenient so they don't bother.

 

[kevo_55]

I seem to remember that we had a digital seal topic a few years ago.

I will say that it isn't an issue at my company. The digital signature company that we use locks down a PDF pretty good. Other people can stamp the document without invalidating the original signature.

It sure beats signing a 1000 page drawing set by hand.

 

[Stewie]

This happened at my last firm and is the reason I left the company. The head of our electrical department was a non-PE (which was a problem to begin with) and he used another electrical engineer's PE seal (electronic) and applied the date to a drawing without his permission. I later found out this happened multiple times.

I do not have an electronic seal. I have a wooden stamp with the rubber seal. When the time comes to seal a drawing, I stamp a small piece of paper with the seal, physically sign and date the seal, and scan the image as a .jpg. Then I go into photoshop and convert the image into a .png file. Then I insert it into the CAD file and create PDFs of the drawings. Every project has a unique signature/date, and I keep the piece of paper with each date and my stamp in a locked box. I keep a log in Excel of every project I sign, so if there's ever a question about something I signed, I can always compare it to the image I created for that project. I know it sounds paranoid, but I have my reasons.

A while back someone claimed it would be easy to "lift" the signature and date off the .pdf and copy my seal or signature without the date. I've yet to see how someone could do that, but I suppose it's possible.

Wow, I see now why ppl has concerns over the electronic seal!

 

[EngineerDisaster]

I have the cad version of my stamp and my signature. They are stored on a network drive that no one else has access to (we each have private network space). That way I can load it when I need it, and use it. It is part of the record in CAD, but can only be accessed when I am logged in as me. It shows as a broken reference to anyone else.

 

[positive_swordfish]

anyone know where we can order a CA PE stamp with the bear seal??

this site doesn't seem to have it, but would've thought it was the same across the board: California Professional Engineer Stamp | PE Stamps