Aboard Launches Aboard Sign, a Free Document-Signing App With Zero Login and Total Privacy
No accounts, no app, no archive: Aboard Sign gets a document signed by email, hands every signer a self-verifying PDF,
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Aboard, the AI software consultancy, today launched Aboard Sign, a free tool that replaces the multibillion-dollar digital signature industry with one email—just send the document and Cc the co-signers. When everyone has signed, each person receives the signed PDF and the signing is deleted from Aboard Sign’s servers.
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Most e-signing services are built to store your stuff: every document, every signature, and every signer’s email address, often indefinitely. Aboard Sign is built to let them go. The signed PDF carries its own proof, so nobody needs to keep a copy on a server to show it’s real.
“With AI, you can build as much software as you want,” said Aboard CEO Rich Ziade, who led the development effort. “But there’s already far too much software in the world. With Aboard Sign, we took a different approach: how do we use AI to make something that people want to use with as little friction as possible?” Rich is trained as an attorney, and his interest in contracts and agreements, and making them easier, spurred this project on.
“My brilliant co-founder Rich has done it again,” said Aboard cofounder (and New York Times AI opinion writer) Paul Ford. “Most signing tools are bloated nightmares of clicks that pretend you’re in a lawyers office in 1955. And AI only tends to make things worse and more bloated. But Aboard Sign is the beautiful essence of contracts, and building it with AI meant our brilliant team of experts could try dozens of versions and build a system so durable and simple that we had no choice but to make it available to everyone for free.”
How it works
A signing can start in two ways:
- By email. Attach the document and email it to sign@aboard.com, with everyone else who needs to sign on Cc. Everyone on the email signs, the sender included. The subject becomes the title, and the message becomes the note to signers.
- From an AI assistant or program. An assistant can start a signing from a document it wrote, following the prompt we share on our site (https://sign.aboard.com), and hand the sender their link. A formal API description is also available (https://sign.aboard.com/llms.txt).
Aboard Sign replies to each signer, in the same email thread, with a personal link. Opening it is how Aboard Sign knows who they are: There’s no login or password. Signers read the document, type or draw a signature, and agree to sign electronically. Nobody gets another email until the signed copy arrives.
The signed PDF is mailed to everyone. Every page carries its own fingerprint and an address to check it at. The last pages list every signature, each with its own cryptographic key, plus Aboard Sign’s countersignature.
What it keeps, and what it doesn’t
While a document is out for signature, Aboard Sign keeps it encrypted. A signing ends when everyone signs or 30 days pass.
One thing outlasts a completed signing: a permanent, anonymous entry in a public log. The entry holds the document’s fingerprint, page count and time, with no title, names or words. That log is published as a plain web page and committed every day to a public repository.
Anyone can check a signed copy by dropping it on Aboard Sign’s record page (https://sign.aboard.com/v/). It’s checked page by page in the browser, without being uploaded. An AI assistant can check a copy the same way through Aboard Sign’s API.
Aboard believes software should be simple and solve one problem at a time. A signer’s identity is proof that they can open their email, not an ID check. The signed PDF holds every party’s name, email address and signature, so anyone who has the file can read them. Mail providers keep messages as they always do. The signed copy is kept encrypted for seven days so each signer can download it from their link, and any data left in storage is wiped within 40 days. The full details are at our privacy page (https://sign.aboard.com/privacy/).
Availability
Aboard Sign is available now, free. To start a signing, email a document to sign@aboard.com. No account or download is required. Learn more at sign.aboard.com.
About Aboard
Aboard is an AI-era software consultancy with twenty years of product experience. It helps organizations plan, build and ship software. Learn more at aboard.com.
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