Why is it Difficult to Copy Money and IDs?
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2017-05-06
·
998 words · ~4 min read
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back in the day if you really wanted to try a cigarette or a beer but were a few
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months or even years south of proper it
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often wasn't all that hard to get your friend's cool older brother to make you
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a fake driver's license that looked close enough to the real thing to fool a
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clerk and allow you to walk out of the store Contraband in hand in modern times
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though governments and other organizations have used technology to
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finally start to seriously combat the
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ancient practices of forgery and
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counterfeiting not just to make sure you're really of legal age but to
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prevent serious crimes like human trafficking and keep your money safe so
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what are some of the things that make documents like passports driver's
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licenses credit cards and cash so hard
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to forge these days let's start with
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something that's usually pretty easy to see the hologram because a hologram is
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really a precise record of how light
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defract off of an object at different angles it's harder to produce than a
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regular photograph you need lasers lenses and special film making these a
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popular security feature on ID cards credit cards and passports but of course
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Holograms can still be copied given the
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right tools so these days you might also
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see very fine engraving in the Hologram
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if you look closely enough which is even more difficult to copy if you don't have
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the same equipment that was originally used to make it but what about the stuff
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then that's a little less obvious and no I'm not talking about the ignorant and
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culturally offensive rumor that Canada made its $100 bills smell like maple
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syrup no wait a minute but rather the
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special inks that are used for printing money or other documents often times
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governments can defeat people that try to modify passports illegally by
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printing them with thermally sensitive ink when the forger tries to tamper with
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the passport a process that often requires heat the ink will change color
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letting officials know that passport is no longer kosher there are also inks
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that can be printed in 2 and A2 diens ions so you can actually feel a bump
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with your finger ones that shift color depending on the viewing angle this is a
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pretty neat feature of the latest US currency and even ones that shine under
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a black light you can learn more about that in this video here but there's more
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to it than just technology and owning the right equipment Sometimes the best
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defense can be simply attention to detail have you ever bought a Louis
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Vuitton purse that has the LV logo cut off by a seam or an iPhone with typos on
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the packaging well the agencies that print money and IDs can even outsmart
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counterfitters through similar means here's an example certain fonts that
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they might use look simple or unremarkable at first glance but might
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have subtleties that make them very hard to reproduce exactly and many times they
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aren't fonts that you can get from Google search but proprietary type faces
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only used by a certain country's government some of which contain
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intentional imperfections to throw counterfeits off the more you know of
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course many of us are using bank or credit cards a heck of a lot more than
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cash these days so stay tuned for a follow-up episode on those new fangled
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chip cards and how and why they are
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harder to copy than those mag Stripes that we're all used to swiping or if by
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