Xerox Develops New Way to Print Invisible Ink 87
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."
So what's new? (Score:5, Informative)
Xerox (and the rest) have been hiding identifying marks in *our* printouts for ages now. It's a good job there's nothing to fear from our democratically elected governments who fight evil and oppression around the world.
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Miraculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Step 2. Invent a way so that anybody can reproduce the same security measure using readily-available equipment, without special inks.
Step 3. ???
Step 4. Profit!
Oh wait. I guess step 3 would be "start counterfeiting things."
even worse (Score:5, Interesting)
Xerox expects that over time, the technology will be used in personalized checks that will have the account holder's signature printed in a fluorescent stripe.
So they want to print my signature, right on the check, in a form that anyone with a UV light can read (even suggesting it is so the mrechant can verify "my" signature that way). How idiotic! First of all, the last thing that I want is my signature printed on the check so that any thief who gets hold of the checkbook can have a sample of what to practice signing my name like (it would be far better to use computer technology to show authorized bank tellers my segnature seperate from the check, easy enough to do with current computer technology). And worse, in an age where anyone can order checks with any account number on them (or even print them themselves), I hardly want the identity theives to be able to print their version of "my signature" on the checks they print so that they can convince someone accepting the check that it's valid because the signature matches.
Re:even worse (Score:4, Interesting)
Nice try... (Score:2, Informative)
Cash Cow [snopes.com]
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Re:Miraculous (Score:5, Funny)
Step 1:
Step 2:
Step 3:
Step 4: Profit!!!
Oh crap.... (Score:3, Funny)
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Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
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See, the graph at http://www.x-rates.com/d/USD/CNY/graph120.html [x-rates.com] points out a clear trend of devaluation of the American Dollar compared to a whole lot of other currencies in the world in the last 120 days. I don't care enough to dig out long-term trends for your education, but having a currency unit A that is worth two units of currency B is not exactly good if four months ago a unit of A was worth 10 units of B. It either shows A is being actively devalued by the governm
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It's got to be a bummer for Canada - I'm on a border state where people vacation to Canada and cross to buy stuff. I have friends who have even bought homes from Canada, and local businesses have deals with Montreal business partners to take advantage of exchange rates.
Their prices just went up 25% in the last few months.
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Re:Oh crap.... (Score:5, Funny)
Prove it! (Score:1)
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Damned portable blacklights! (Score:5, Insightful)
Xerox expects that over time, the technology will be used in personalized checks that will have the account holder's signature printed in a fluorescent stripe.
"A merchant could easily compare the fluorescent signature with the actual one to validate the check," said Eschbach.
Yeah, so someone gets one of these [google.com], what then?
That's even worse, cause normally someone doesn't have the signature of the account holder if they were to steal/find a check. This will actually give them that, and make the check appear that much more authentic when used ("What do you mean, check fraud? That's your signature, isn't it?").
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Far freakin' out (Score:5, Insightful)
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He and the group realized that most paper manufacturers already inject fluorescent brightening agents in paper to enchance its "whiteness," so they worked to create certain combinations of toner that would allow the paper's fluorescence to shine through when exposed to ultraviolet light,
i dont understand what they are doing that is new. they rely on the paper for fluorescence. So the printer is normal CMYK, but the paper has to have fluorescent agents in it for it to work... so what exactly is the new tech here?
Re:Far freakin' out (Score:5, Insightful)
"He and the group realized that most paper manufacturers already inject fluorescent brightening agents in paper to enchance its "whiteness," so they worked to create certain combinations of toner that would allow the paper's fluorescence to shine through when exposed to ultraviolet light, Eschbach said.
Subsequently, Xerox developed a font that uses that inherent contrast to essentially "write" hidden fluorescent letters and numbers."
So they developed either a new toner formula or leveraged existing applications of toner in combination with a font to exploit the existing properties of paper to create a new printing process.
That is indeed innovation. Just because the solution seems obvious now that it's all be spelled out, it was a stroke of genius to make the connection and take it to practical application. This is the sort of thing patents are made for.
Maybe not as far as it sounds (Score:5, Interesting)
What they may be doing is using the matte properties of printer toner to dull the fluorescent sheen of most of the paper by applying a difficult-to-detect stochastic pattern over the ostensibly white areas of the printout. The areas that are still completely white will seem to fluoresce compared to the areas that have been colored "eggshell white" by the printer. But that's just a guess.
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Not quite. There is no chlorine in "color safe bleach," but there are still oxidizers, such as sodium percarbonate, and those are the primary agents of stain removal. The flourescent dyes you're referring to are optical brighteners [wikipedia.org], but those are present in pretty much any laundry detergent made since the 1940s, although I don't think they're present in color safe bleach.
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Just wait until they announce their x-ray specs.
TFA makes some funny claims about security (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, a thief with a flourescent lamp could easily determine what your signature should look like, and so how does that provide any kind of security? I suppose it provides the same degree of security as the signature on a credit card receipt (which also provides no real security), but that kind of "security", clearly, doesn't require "invisible" ink in the first place.
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Obligatory pic (Score:5, Funny)
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Hm, then again, this *is* my brother's monitor, and he usually uses it to surf questionable sites late at night...
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Hey, cool! I ran a UV light over my computer and I don't see any words but lots of dots
and smudges over the monitor, keyboard and mouse.
What kind of ink does that? I thought UV would only show fluids such as blood and...uhhh.
ForgetISaidAnythingGotta go! Bye!
Have any idea how expensive invisible ink will be? (Score:3, Funny)
"Yeah, I'm afraid your Lemon Juice Cartridge was out, so I replaced that. The total bill will be just under $6,000."
Re:Have any idea how expensive invisible ink will (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Have any idea how expensive invisible ink will (Score:2)
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CMYKL (Score:4, Funny)
Tech Issues (Score:5, Funny)
Simple (Score:5, Funny)
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That's good, cause I don't think they sell refill kits for these yet.
Hey wait, I've got a killer business idea...
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Duh... When you no longer get invisible printing. Check you printouts for invisible printing.
Re:Tech Issues (Score:4, Funny)
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?".
Ask the government (Score:2)
"Yes Sir, General Smith. The totally stealthed invisible plane is right over there."
"No Sir, of course you can't see it. It's invisible."
"Well, we think that we can produce them for about $2 billion each, Sir."
"500. No problem. We'll have them ready in three weeks."
Security through obscurity (Score:2)
Vik
Nice and all, but it seems to depend on the paper (Score:4, Interesting)
I know its not being a proper member of Slashdot if you RTFA, but the idea of a method of printing invisible markings without ink was quite something. Only when reading TFA did I come across this little gem:
Very very clever, but it relies on the presence of fluorescent brightening agents in the paper (these are those "ultra bright/white" paper brands that they charge a premium for). This means that those of you of a tin-foilish predisposition can make use of paper which does not contain these agents in order to prevent your printer making any invisible markings using this technique. Unfortunately this makes counterfeiting not that much easier, as the process that banknotes use to add invisible markings are different to this.
It also means that most company paper will not work (I don't know about other people, but where I worked, the paper was usually the cheapest economy stuff you could find, primarily because they used so much of it).
I can assume that either the premium paper companies are in for a surge in sales from this or all the other brands of paper will start adding these agents and it will become standard. We shall see.
P.S I think the article meant "enhance", not "enchance".
Re:Nice and all, but it seems to depend on the pap (Score:3, Interesting)
Invisible ink, for invisible brains (Score:1)
Counterfeit Tickets (Score:1)
i saw one of these 2 years ago (Score:1)
security? (Score:1)
Re: Xerox Develops New Way to Print Invisible Ink (Score:1)
Security Through Obscurity (Score:2)
To do list for today (Score:2)
(2) Purchase sheaf of non-fluorescent paper -- probably any enviro paper will do
(3) Stop and release that I rarely print anything, and even more rarely print something that matters
(4) Return to watching Americans get beat at the French Open
If This Had Been HP (Score:2)
On a more serious note, since your printers these days secretly rat-you-out by printing subtle identifying information that will let the feds track you down just by inspecting a page you've printed, is this an even more subtle way to implement that "feature"?
What Happen? (Score:2)