Security threats Toolkit

Counteracting high-tech counterfeiters

Tags:
Treasury Department,
Counterfeiting

Jonathan Skillings CNET News

Published: 23 Apr 2007 12:20 BST

…[so that] if they did try to emulate that feature, it would still be obvious that it was a counterfeit.

I read that one possibility might even be to make currency uncuttable — if you can cut [a banknote], it's counterfeit; if you can't cut it, it's real.
Right. You could embed something on one of the edges that would be made from a very durable type of polymer, and you could twist it, cut it, or whatever, and that would be proof positive.

Some of this new technology, like some of the nanocrystal inks, would lend themselves quite nicely to a more sophisticated sensor that could be easily available in stores or banks

Robert Schafrik, chairman, NRC committee on currency counterfeiting

Another suggestion had to do with embedding things like little lenses into the bill.
That would be a similar kind of an idea from the plastic window. See the other thing is that if you have a very flat, nice surface — you would on some of these polymers — you could do some very fine printing or put in a very nice feature that is beyond the resolution limit in the foreseeable scanner, the digitised scanner. That would be another type of benefit that would detract from someone just trying to make a digital image of a banknote and print it out. It would take a lot more added steps to be a decent-looking counterfeit.

Another idea that sounded intriguing would be using nanotechnology [to change the nature of the material in the banknotes].
Yes, that's exactly right. So we could conceive of these things, but our frustration was — we'd like to go to a lab and make up some sample notes and see if the reality kind of matches what the thought process was.

We did think of some vulnerabilities that maybe some of these ideas would have and we didn't want to explain in the report what those vulnerabilities would be, because we didn't want to create a counterfeiter's handbook, if you will, for a new feature that really hasn't been developed. So that was little bit of a quandary. We actually dropped some pretty neat ideas we had because, on reflection, we thought — well it would be almost impossible for someone to duplicate it exactly, but maybe it wouldn't be that hard for someone to do it good enough to pass only once.

As we look into the future, we could see more of an application for authenticating notes with some sort of an aid and not just with the human senses.

A scanner or reader, or something like that?
People are beginning to use some sort of assistive aid, some of these new features that we talked about in the report, that maybe only need a pen light or maybe a little grid that you can just slide across the note. If the right kind of pattern is printed on there, you'll see some marked effect by just that simple grid, or having infrared light that would make some special ink more visible, that sort of thing. The idea is it doesn't have to be something very expensive or sophisticated. On the other hand, some of this new technology, like some of the nanocrystal inks, would lend themselves quite nicely to a more sophisticated sensor that could be easily available in stores or banks.

There are scanners of some sort already in use — is that just for looking for the watermark or something like that?
That's right. It would be kind of the next step up from there. The problem with the watermark is the clarity of the image is not high. One of our thoughts would be — what could be introduced into the banknotes would be the next-generation improvements on some of the features which already are in the note. In fact, one probably wouldn't want to make a dramatic change in the notes, because we are pretty comfortable and used to our currency now. A dramatic change would be hard to sell to the public. You need public acceptance of these things.

The report also talked about the internet being a threat. How so?
We said the internet could be, and in fact it is being, exploited now by counterfeiters. In fact, a few of our committee members went on to the internet to see what they could learn about counterfeiting. And it was amazing — all the information that's out there, almost a recipe for how to do x, y and z, and where to buy supplies, and what's the best kind of equipment to use, and all this sort of thing. You could see as we go into the future and start putting more sophisticated features in the banknote that some of the smart bad guys would like to share that. So, in that sense, we said we see the internet as being a growing threat too.