Desktop Counterfeiting
Friday October 3, 2003
While desktop publishing software, scanners, and inkjet printers makes it easier to create and publish ads, brochures, and newsletters, it's also easier to create fake ID cards, event tickets, and counterfeit money. Here are a few news stories where desktop publishing has been on the wrong side of the law.
"Scanners, computers and ink jet printers that made desktop publishing possible also let counterfeiters do their work without large and expensive offset printing operations." -- Oakland Tribune Online - Business News - New $20 bills set to circulate
"...high-value sports and entertainment tickets are increasingly at risk from even casual counterfeiters due to advancements in desktop publishing." -- Silicon Valley Biz Ink - InkSure Press Release - Anti-counterfeiting Solutions for College Football Tickets
"Experts then discovered the bonds, dated 1934, had been run off on a modern inkjet printer." -- Mirror.co.uk - Expert in $2trillion bond plot
"...it takes 11 simple steps to create an authentic looking New Jersey driver's license. A forger needs only a photo-quality inkjet printer, a picture of himself on a blue background scanned into the computer, access to a laminator, photo paper and a laminate pouch." -- USA Today - Internet key to do-it-yourself fake ids - Templates from internet and a little desktop publishing know-how is all it takes
"Producing a counterfeit check is fairly easy. All that is required is a ... computer, desktop publishing software, a scanner, a printer-- and a modicum of computer smarts." -- TechTV - Counterfeit Computing
The problem isn't new, as described in this article from 1990 on Desktop Publishing Fraud - It seems that as anti-counterfeiting measures get more sophisticated, so does the software and hardware used do the counterfeiting. By 1995 the problem had grown tremendously:
"Counterfeiting was once the domain of skilled crooks who needed expensive engraving and printing equipment. But as the prices of desktop-publishing systems have dropped, counterfeiting has gone mainstream. Personal computers with the graphics needed for counterfeiting are now available for a few hundred dollars. While in 1989 an Apple laser printer that reproduced 300 dots per inch (dpi) cost $3,900, today such printers sell for less than $500, and printers delivering 600 dpi, the current standard, cost well under $1,000. A counterfeiter can purchase a color ink-jet printer - the fastest-growing tool of choice for desktop counterfeiting - for less than $500. By 1995, an estimated 4.9 million color printers will be in use with personal computers in the United States, with another 4 million overseas. Similarly, five years ago a color scanner capable of reproducing 600 dots per inch would have set a forger back $10,000; now they too cost less than $500." -- Desktop Counterfeiting by Doug McClelland
"Scanners, computers and ink jet printers that made desktop publishing possible also let counterfeiters do their work without large and expensive offset printing operations." -- Oakland Tribune Online - Business News - New $20 bills set to circulate
"...high-value sports and entertainment tickets are increasingly at risk from even casual counterfeiters due to advancements in desktop publishing." -- Silicon Valley Biz Ink - InkSure Press Release - Anti-counterfeiting Solutions for College Football Tickets
"Experts then discovered the bonds, dated 1934, had been run off on a modern inkjet printer." -- Mirror.co.uk - Expert in $2trillion bond plot
"...it takes 11 simple steps to create an authentic looking New Jersey driver's license. A forger needs only a photo-quality inkjet printer, a picture of himself on a blue background scanned into the computer, access to a laminator, photo paper and a laminate pouch." -- USA Today - Internet key to do-it-yourself fake ids - Templates from internet and a little desktop publishing know-how is all it takes
"Producing a counterfeit check is fairly easy. All that is required is a ... computer, desktop publishing software, a scanner, a printer-- and a modicum of computer smarts." -- TechTV - Counterfeit Computing
The problem isn't new, as described in this article from 1990 on Desktop Publishing Fraud - It seems that as anti-counterfeiting measures get more sophisticated, so does the software and hardware used do the counterfeiting. By 1995 the problem had grown tremendously:
"Counterfeiting was once the domain of skilled crooks who needed expensive engraving and printing equipment. But as the prices of desktop-publishing systems have dropped, counterfeiting has gone mainstream. Personal computers with the graphics needed for counterfeiting are now available for a few hundred dollars. While in 1989 an Apple laser printer that reproduced 300 dots per inch (dpi) cost $3,900, today such printers sell for less than $500, and printers delivering 600 dpi, the current standard, cost well under $1,000. A counterfeiter can purchase a color ink-jet printer - the fastest-growing tool of choice for desktop counterfeiting - for less than $500. By 1995, an estimated 4.9 million color printers will be in use with personal computers in the United States, with another 4 million overseas. Similarly, five years ago a color scanner capable of reproducing 600 dots per inch would have set a forger back $10,000; now they too cost less than $500." -- Desktop Counterfeiting by Doug McClelland
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