Xerox Develops New Way to Print Invisible Ink

scott3778 writes "Xerox said on Wednesday that its scientists have perfected a new method for printing hidden fluorescent wording using standard digital printing equipment. According to the company, the discovery paves the way for customers and businesses alike to add an additional layer of security to commonly printed materials such as checks, tickets, coupons, and other high-value documents. The hidden fluorescent words and letters show up only under ultraviolet light, said Reiner Eschbach, a research fellow in the Xerox Innovation Group, and the co-inventor of the patented process. What's more, the method for printing them doesn't require the use of special fluorescent inks."

Oh crap....

[mark-t]

Counterfeiting Canadian money just got a whole lot easier.

Re:Oh crap....

[Cheezymadman]

It's still not worth the paper it's printed on.

Obligatory pic

[nEoN nOoDlE]

Here's a pic of it in action:

Re:Prove it!

[__aaclcg7560]

You ask the Goth chick at the coffee counter to whip out her portable UV light to view it.

Have any idea how expensive invisible ink will be?

[Nova Express]

Hell, ink jet ink is already more expensive per gram than pure heroin, Just imagine how much of a premium the invisible ink refill is going to cost you!

"Yeah, I'm afraid your Lemon Juice Cartridge was out, so I replaced that. The total bill will be just under $6,000."

CMYKL

[Anonymous Coward]

Printing invisible ink is pretty nifty, but what they don't tell you is that their standard toner will need to switch from CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) to CMYKL (cyan, magenta, yellow, black, lemon juice).

Tech Issues

[abscissa]

How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?

Re:Oh crap....

[Opportunist]

Yeah, sure, but why bother?

Re:Have any idea how expensive invisible ink will

[Opportunist]

As long as they accept my invisible credit card, I'm fine.

Simple

[Overzeetop]

Stuff starts showing up on your printouts!

Re:Tech Issues

[RuBLed]

You would never run out of invisible ink.

Re:Miraculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it works like this:

Step 1:
Step 2:
Step 3:
Step 4: Profit!!!

Re:Tech Issues

[jimicus]

Silly question, but I've got a serious anecdote. Yes, this really happened.

Back when I was in school (this is circa 1996, we were using HP LaserJet 4L's), a few chaps discovered that they could run the same sheet of paper through a printer more than once.

They came up with the brilliant idea of printing a picture over the whole page, then running the same sheet of paper through the printer, only this time print out some white text on a white background over it. They expected a result of white text overlaid on the dark picture "because it'll appear like that with the white ink, won't it?".

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