Digital Protection against counterfeiting: Will it work?
With the money counterfeiting on sharp rise, innovative solutions to this problem are in high demand. About one such candidate solution, ‘New Scientist’ recently had this to report:
A team of German and Japanese researchers created arrays of thin-film transistors (TFTs) by carefully depositing gold, aluminium oxide and organic molecules directly onto the notes through a patterned mask, building up the TFTs layer by layer.
It also noted that:
Although the researchers have yet to work out how the organic electronics could be harnessed as an anti-counterfeit measure, the circuits are able to perform simple computing operations.
Although it seems that ‘digital notes’ are still some years away, that day is not far off now. As the digital revolution invades the arena of finances, there are some points that need to be pondered upon:
- Will this lead to a better solution, or is it just an attempt to move the problem to another layer?
- From a human interface perspective, will this ‘extra feature’ lead people to rely solely upon digital security and in a way, short-circuit the 50 other time-tested security features of the past two centuries?
- Cash is traditionally considered to be more secure, trustworthy and verifiable as compared to plastic money. Will this ‘innovation’ bring the trustworthiness of cash down to the same level as plastic money?
- What about the privacy issues attached to a digital solution? Will it make money more tractable?
The answer to all these questions is simple and yet quite complex. It depends on the way the whole solution is engineered. An engineering solution that successfully alleviates all these concerns would really find much acceptance.
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