The authors of a new paper propose using scanners to view individual wood fibers in a sheet of paper and generating a fingerprint based on the unique patterns formed by these fibers. The paper will appear in the Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, in May 2009. [Link]
I suppose someone somewhere just started looking at ways to create a sheet of paper with a pre-defined pattern of the constituent wood fibers :)
Viewed under a microscope, an ordinary piece of paper looks like this:
This paper presents a novel technique for authenticating physical documents based on random, naturally occurring imperfections in paper texture. We introduce a new method for measuring the three-dimensional surface of a page using only a commodity scanner and without modifying the document in any way. From this physical feature, we generate a concise fingerprint that uniquely identifies the document. Our technique is secure against counterfeiting and robust to harsh handling; it can be used even before any content is printed on a page. It has a wide range of applications, including detecting forged currency and tickets, authenticating passports, and halting counterfeit goods. Document identification could also be applied maliciously to de-anonymize printed surveys and to compromise the secrecy of paper ballots.
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