An ink to baffle cheats

RANK Xerox is developing an ink that
cannot be photocopied so that secret
documents can now be safeguarded
even better. The secret ink is being
@developed at the company's laboratory
in Grenoble, France, in association with
scientists from Paris University. The ink
incorporates molecules that can change
shape and become opaque when
exposed to brief flashes of light.
Therefore, the flash of a photocopier or
a scanner's beam renders the ink briefly
invisible, making the document impossible to copy (Rank Xerox Newsletter,
fanuary'96).

Rank Xerox intends introducing the
ink into office printers so that sensitive
documents can never be copied once
they are printed. The invention will
enable, for instance, publishers protect
their work from copyright infringements.

The company is also developing
smart-paper', a printing process that
incorporates a barcode-like configuration of tiny crescent-shaped marks
called glyphs. These can be of any shape
or colour, hold up to one megabyte of
information per square inch and be read
by any printer equipped with the correct
driver software.

Glyphs are intended to help automatic document processing. The), can
provide information like telling a computer exactly where to look on a questionnaire for ticks, or inform somebody
wishing to copy a book or magazine
article, who to contact for permission.The technologies are likely to be incorporated with each other such that a
person trying to reproduce a document
will be told that they do not have
clearance and that they should call a
given telephone number for more
details.

A more updated version of the
glyphs - which the company is still
working on - will equip it with additional security features. The possibilities
opened up by this seem numerous. One
can fit this latest one with passwords so
that only those supposed to read the
glyph, do so. A document may appear
normal but with a glyph, it may contain
secret information that only the person
possessing the password can access. In
addition, one can even print a photograph on a pass so that security staff
with scanners can identify the genuine
owner of a pass.