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3D Holograms Detect Fake Signatures
Roland Piquepaille writes "Several sources reported last week that a new technique that produces 3D holograms of handwriting could be used to detect fake signatures on checks, credit card receipts or other important handwritten documents. Here are pointers to Nature, Scientific American or BBC News Online. Instead of using 2D techniques to look at the sequence of pen strokes in a signature, this new method is based on 3D micro-profilometry which permits to translate the writing into an image showing dips and furrows of the sample so that anomalies can be detected. If you plan to imitate your spouse's signature, beware! Forensics have a new and very efficient tool. As an example, for the use of ballpoint pens on normal paper, the success rate was 100%. You'll find more details, references and pictures in this overview."
Is my own writing that similar? What happens if I let my guard down and something slightly different, will I be arrested for fraud by forging my own name?
Out of the 126 writers whose handwriting they surveyed, I'm sure at least a few of them have the "messy" and "inconsistent" handwriting that some people think they have. If the techinque measures nuances that professional forgerers are not aware of/in control of, I'm sure that whatever it measures flies under your radar as well.
So who's going to replace your finger print and your retinas when someone figures out how to replicate that? Try replacing your fingerprints- I dare you.
Biometrics DO NOT WORK.
transmission_err
A 100% detection (at least in tests) of false signatures? Great!
How hard did they try to create a false signature?
And how often were legit signatures rejected? (I can create an algorithm that filters out 100% of the false signatures, guaranteed - it simply rejects all signatures it gets)
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
Just how much closer are tablet PCs to true handwriting recognition? Authentity aside, handwriting appears to be a simple enough problem, but so much emphasis is placed on context. People can write according to lines on a page. A semicolon shouldn't be confused for an i.
Now if we can detect forgeries with science, surely the science can be programmed to decide whether I wrote the number 1 or the letter l or even know the letter t is not the letter f and the > is not 7.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
Why does /. keep posting articles submitted by this guy? He has a shabby blog on radio.weblogs.com and does a poor job stealing other writers work; the site is a blatant commercial effort. Yet /. keeps putting Roland's stuff up and linking to it.
What's the deal? Is there some kind of commercial payola a la 1970's radio? Maybe the editor has a thing going with Roland, in a Clinton-McGreevy-esque way.
*Cringe* I didn't need any of those mental images.
Ballpoint pens are probably the best choice for signing checks and other documents. The ink is hard to bleach and the ball crushes fibers in the paper, providing a record of pressure applied to the pen. Unfortunately, nobody bothers to look at signatures on most documents, like checks.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I'm not sure there's any point trying to prove a signature is authentic -> How many of us actually have formal signatures that we can replicate perfectly? I know sure as hell that my signature is different every time and, sequence of pen stroke or no, I'd fail a test for my own signature every time. I'd instead be working on a way to place an electronic signature - some kind of stamp or something, that acts like a GUID for a person how needs to sign something.
If we have the technology to read signatures, why not just make a device to write signatures? Surely it can't be that hard?
We may not have the tech to exploit it in front of someone at the moment, but I can't imagine a laboratory-style exploit is far off.
This kind of revelation about how to protect against forgery ends up defining the victory conditions a lot better, giving attackers a clearer target.
Anyone want to take bets on how soon we'll see an article on an industrious group of technologists who modified a plotter to make automated signatures that cannot be detected as forgeries?
-- Fratz, human
Just finished a part time job at a bank where I learned a frightening amount about check fraud. Such technology will do NOTHING to stop professional check cons... Most fraud goes in the check-by-mail or ATM system with enough co-deposits to ensure that the check is never looked at once by a human being, at least not for authenticity or the like. The nice little numbers on the bottom of the check do the trick and the magnetic reader takes it from there. When a person does "proof" or look at the check they will focus soley on the amount of the check and the account number... They have WAY too many items to look at such silly stuff like.... name, pay to the order of or... signature. The looming Check 21 Act aims to stamp out some fraud, but won't do much most likely. How much money would it cost banks as a whole to employ enough people to inspect each of the millions and millions of checks each day? Tellers see only a portion of a bank's total check activity. With check fraud at some $500 million a year I guess the banking industry decided it's cheaper to live with than to fully combat. Doubt some new 3D sig will do anything at all to help...