Safe Harbor

(A Safe Haven)

Countering counterfeiting and anti-counterfeit measures may not necessarily work, but suppliers who provide secure text files and business consulting services can help customers get shelter from counterfeiting.

Students often change the transcripts at the school. In response to this phenomenon, a printing service provider in Manalapan, New Jersey, redesigned the transcripts for the university. The format of the transcripts was 12.5 x 8.5 inches. With several anti-counterfeiting technology. If chemical reaction paper is selected, if someone wants to use acetone to make changes on such documents, the ink will fade; there is a layer of purple coating (purple is the school's representative color) at the completion of the grade, if someone tries to use the correction fluid Modifying results will be obvious. In addition, there are other characteristics of this transcript: there is a warning bar on the right and a prominent school seal. The company provides hundreds of thousands of such transcripts each year.

So far, schools using new transcripts have not encountered any problems, but the school has not relaxed any vigilance, because evil minds are always reluctant to miss each new product, so new features should be added to the security documents. .

After defeating evil, criminal consciousness has gained the upper hand. Even for an ordinary person, making fakes will become easy. For example, an unsatisfied employee modifies cheques, fans fake tickets for sports events, and customers change the amount on gift certificates. At this time, people do not even need to purchase a printing press to complete the forgery process. The increasingly popular laser printers and color copiers make this easy.

It is possible to protect customers from fraud by technologically leading the way. In order to stop counterfeiting, providers of security services must think like criminals, so that they can understand potential fraud methods well. Dick Gray, president of a print service company, believes that security is an issue. 80% of their business is selling magnetic ink signature recognition (MICR) printing systems. He believes that it is necessary to understand the technical elements of counterfeiting and counterfeiting. He said: "I used to be a student of a counterfeiter - to learn how the counterfeiters operate, what they need, and what equipment they use." Ten years ago, Gray worked in NASA's Technology Communication Department at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). During this period, he participated in a FBI in the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. Gray thinks this has benefited him a lot because he knows the psychology of the counterfeiter.

However, Gray did not stop at what he learned in the course ten years ago. He always pays attention to counterfeiting. Gray researches international counterfeit technology through the Internet and improves anti-counterfeiting technology accordingly.

Not only is the problem of paper long-term research taught Gray an important reason: Protecting the security of customer documents not only means providing them with papers with anti-counterfeiting capabilities. The anti-counterfeit measures need to be taken as a whole and become the common goal of the end consumers, suppliers, manufacturers and economic groups to work hard to reduce the possibility of counterfeiting.

In large U.S.-to-Fortune 50 companies, small to small commercial companies have purchased Gray's magnetic ink signature recognition printing system. Users can use this system to export data from their financial software and print ticket documents like payment invoices, payroll account documents, and deposit notices. This system can print out ticket information of different contents (including MICR number), company logos, automatic signals, etc. on each blank ticket.

The magnetic ink signature recognition (MICR) ticket printing system consists of four parts, all provided by Gray. First, it is a dedicated MICR software program that manages the integrity of the system and is responsible for training local users and providing services to the company. Second, install MICR special laser printing equipment provided by TROY Systems LLC. Finally, there are MICR special ink cartridges and blank bill blanks with multi-layer anti-counterfeiting functions. The blanks contain anti-counterfeiting features such as watermarks and toner coatings.

Gray illustrates some of the advantages of the MICR ticket printing system. Enterprises can change data according to their needs, such as the bank's account number; the use of print-on-demand bills eliminates the need for companies to store circulation checks, which can be used with printing, greatly reducing the risk of counterfeiting. Gray explained: "Before printing, the blank of the cheque itself has little value. Companies only need to buy one kind of bill blank instead of storing a large number of bills with different functions, such as payroll books and payment invoices.

In addition to the MICR ticket printing system, Gray also provides value-added services to improve security. He provided the client with a letter of instruction sent to the bank telling them what security measures were used on the bank checks. In addition to assisting banks in identifying counterfeit cheques, such letter-of-thumbs can also provide companies with some legitimate protection against fraud.

Xtension Technologies also guarantees that circulation documents do not have to be packed into boxes that indicate their importance before they can be shipped. The supplier's shipping of labels and tickets does not mean that there must be a check. For example: A box of salary books can be labeled as a "personnel notice." This method of using camouflage boxes to hold important bills helped one of Gray's clients. His company was stolen and thieves stole computers with MICR software, MICR-enabled printers, and stole a crystal gift from the president’s desk. However, thieves left a box of blank checks placed next to the device. The classified label on the box indicates that the bills are used by the three departments of the company: the labels are "blue", "green" and "dark red".

Gray also provides consulting services. For example, provide advice to customers on post-processing, such as mailing questions. Gray said that a lot of forgery occurred when the company was preparing to put a box of bills into the post or mail box. The criminal first stole the envelope and opened the envelope that might have a check. They copy and revise the check, then place the original check back in the envelope and put the envelope back in the delivery drum. According to Gray, returning the envelope back to the delivery can reduce the suspicion of the postal inspector.

Protecting all valuable suppliers Suppliers need to expand their horizons in the face of security issues. Any valuable tickets should be protected. In order to meet customer needs, diversified technical means should be widely adopted.

A customer produces and sells bolts and fasteners that must be inspected by the inspection department to ensure that the material meets certain requirements. The company submitted the results to the Federal Inspection Agency and must present documents to prove that the results are reliable. They use a stationery made of cotton fibers with artificial watermarks. All company's experimental results must use this kind of security stationery.

Another hot spot in the field of security and security is the security of tickets and passes. Wittenmeier offers tickets for four festive events each year. These tickets include two major anti-counterfeiting technologies: friction display inks and UV inks. The friction display ink technology is provided by Nocpi Technology Co., Ltd. This ink will change color when it is wiped or nail scraped or scratched. The staff responsible for checking the ticket can identify the authenticity of the ticket by scraping some of the words or signs printed with the ink. If something goes wrong, you will know immediately. The back of this ticket is printed with UV fluorescent ink, which glows when exposed to invisible light. According to this characteristic, the staff of the festival will count the votes at the end of each day and at the same time check out the forged tickets.

Gray also sells several types of access documents. Once he sold to a professional sports team a set of MICR ticket printing systems, he got an office access device that allowed them to enter the stadium so that they could enter the stadium. At that time, he asked the person in charge of the security department a question: If he did not return the pass when the day ended, what would be the result? The person in charge acknowledged to Gray that he could illegally enter the stadium to watch all future home games, and added that the team had a budget of $100,000 a year to make up for the losses caused by the oversupply.

Gray provides a solution. He now provided the team with 10,000 token/tag-bound passes with a slow release effect. When the certificate is issued, it is activated by repeatedly scraping a certain point with the nail. After 4 hours, red stripes appear in the middle of the mark. If the staff saw the mark with this red stripe, they knew it was invalid.

Although tickets for festivals and sporting events are of high value, relatively low-value tickets need protection. A friend of Gray printed tickets for a chain theater in Southern California. These admission tickets include watermarks, holographic films, bleeding marks and Arabic numerals. At first, Gray thought that these anti-counterfeiting measures were too much for the movie theater tickets. However, his friends later said that the theater’s losses due to counterfeiting have reached a considerable degree. “The loss incurred by this chain theater due to the forged tickets each month reached US$4,000. It was a big loss!” This theater has not received fake tickets since it added anti-counterfeiting measures. "They don't care how much it costs to print these tickets because they can be sure this won't cost them $4,000 a month."

Playing a decisive role At the DMIA's school where Gray teaches form experts on safety notes, Gray recommends that suppliers should learn as much as possible to prevent counterfeiting. Gray said: "As a 'SME' - subject matter expert, if you are an authoritative expert and can solve problems, then you will add more value to yourself and your customers." The following are some of the decisive factors in the security issue. Their suggestions can help you please customers.

● well-known equipment. Printers, scanners and copiers are all tools used by counterfeiters. Knowing how they work and their deficiencies can help customers fight counterfeiting. For example, Gray adds thumbnails to customers' prints and guarantees that they must be printed with 1200 dpi screens. Most copiers use 600 dpi. Therefore, when the copy machine uses an excessive number of dots, the thumbnail image will appear grainy.

In order to understand the performance of the device, Gray recommends that security service providers use security tickets as examples in copy machines and scanners, and experiment with various models and brands of devices to see which security measures are most reliable.

● Provide an optional structure. Before deciding on security measures for security documents, all available methods should be considered. Most anti-counterfeiting methods can be used on a variety of prints. A customer of Miller's knitwear business, he used a paycheck that could be cut. The cheques were tucked into envelopes and distributed by the company's supervisor. Miller offers more optional anti-counterfeiting methods. He now provides interpolated mail composed of 3 parts.

In the first part, the front of the e-mail contains a printed area, and the back of this area is coated with a layer of carbon. The second part is the check inserted in the mail, and the third part is the back of the mail. When each email was personalized, only the front of the email left the employee's name, and carbon wrote the check information to the plug-in. The cheque was printed on CheckingJ paper from Boise Cascade and contains a security line with a miniature identification and a warning bar.

●Put seed in the example. In the trade fair held for the government procurement department, advanced business solutions were displayed there. Miller exhibited several samples, including typical black ink printing checks used by government agencies and a multi-layer counterfeit counter check provided by agents. "We planted the seeds of security and asked the public whether they are aware of the potential for counterfeiting," Miller said. "Most people know about forgeries - laser printers. But most people don't associate one approach with another."

● Try to fake it. Test security tickets provided to customers to ensure their security. Joe Wysor is a financial manager for Dominion, a paper supply company in Alexandria, Virginia. They are Washington.