Printed Document Authentication Using Two-Dimensional (2D) Barcodes and Image Processing Techniques

Abstract

Advancements in information and communication technologies have made it easier to forge printed documents these days. Forgery of printed document could have serious repercussions including financial losses, so maintaining the reliability of valuable documents is one that is timely and necessary. The document authentication approach in this study is one that involves tracing of the origin of a document through its contents. The approach explores viability of embedding certain information on printed documents for authentication purposes. Such information could be extracted from the content of documents, which can be divided into two: the context, which includes the text, figures and shapes and the visual attributes of the document, such as its color and design. In short, this study presents a practical and secure method to prevent the forgery of important documents. The proposed method makes use of the public key infrastructure (PKI) and Quick Response (QR) code and the cryptographic hash algorithm shows robustness to printing or scanning noise. The method also makes use of the unique tracking numbers such as device serial numbers, and timestamps enhance the security. To test the feasibility of the method several experiments were perform and the experimental results showed significant improvement in printed document authentication.

Graduation Certificate Verification Model: A Preliminary Study

“…Digital document is designed to produce visual information on the computer monitor [10]. Forgery of documents has increased jeopardizing the integrity of both the document holder and the organization that issued the document [4][5]. The forgery of document is classified into two types which are 1) altering part of an authentic document that is original and 2) producing a new fake certificate with false information [10].…”

“…A graduation certificate is still in the form of a paper-based document because, as of yet, an electronic document cannot effectively replace a physical certificate [13]. With the rise of graduates and advancements in printing and photocopying technologies, came the rise of fake certificates as well threatening the integrity of both the certificate holder and the university that has issued the certificate [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. This means that document validation and verification has become an important task The graduation certificate has to be verified to ensure that its content is true and also to ensure that the issued certificate comes from a real source [2].…”

“…While the researchers [2] defines it as the process of ensuring that documents received from holder are genuine and that the holder is the rightful owner. The problem is that the verification of certificates is costly and time consuming using the traditional methods in which the person to verify calls the issuing institute to make sure that said certificate is correct and that the information is real [2], [3], [4], [5]. For example, when a certificate holder applies for a position or a seat at some university the certificate holder either sends a copy by post or email or even faxes a copy to the place of interest.…”

An Innovative Approach of Verification Mechanism for both Electronic and Printed Documents

“…Till date, a number of techniques have been proposed for seamless document verification [1], [2]. Among them, digital watermarking techniques intend determine the ownership and integrity for digital content [3]. Watermarking techniques intend to detect noise introduced in a document while printing.…”

“…Amidror [4] presented an intrinsic security model which integrates print-based authentication and a security strategy for the protection of valuable documents. This technique is based on more intensity profiles and mathematical transformations of the microstructure of a document to generate an attractive, dynamic visual effect [3]. The author claimed that the counterfeiting of authenticity is difficult but the way of 623 | P a g e www.ijacsa.thesai.org verification from the level of mass people is almost impossible [4].…”