Old habits die hard. The use of carved personal seals in Japan has survived technological leaps which could have rendered them obselete despite their widely acknowledged vulnerability to fraud.

The culture of the hanko (personal seal) is even strong among those who are involved in development of the very biometrics technology which one day is bound to replace it as a method of identifing people.

"The hanko is something more formal than casually signing documents. But it is convenient because it's just a stamp," said Yuichiro Ishibashi, associate manager of new project technology at high-tech giant Toshiba.

At Yahoo! News.

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