Verifying versus falsifying banknotes
Rudolf L. van Renesse · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1998
A series of counterfeit Dutch, German, English, and U.S. banknotes was examined with respect to the various modi operandi to imitate paper based, printed and post-printed security features. These features provide positive evidence (verifiability) as well as negative evidence (falsifiability). It appears that the positive evidence provided in most cases is insufficiently convincing: banknote inspection mainly rests on negative evidence. The act of falsifying (to prove to be false), however, is an inefficacious procedure. Ergonomic verificatory security features are demanded. This demand is increasingly met by security features based on nano- technology. The potential of nano-security has a twofold base: (1) the unique optical effects displayed allow simple, fast and unambiguous inspection, and (2) the nano-technology they are based on, makes successful counterfeit or simulation extremely improbable.