If you have a credit card or just bought a copy of Windows Vista, you're familiar with security holograms -- those sparkly bits of film that vouch for the validity of everything from driver's licenses to software and sports league items.
It turns out, they're aren't as secure as they are sparkly.
Experts say the number of counterfeit holograms affixed to equally counterfeit merchandise has tripled in the past three years, as the technology to make them has spread. Today, crafting a convincing duplicate of a security hologram has never been easier or more profitable.
"The hardest part is peeling the original off," says Jeff Allen, one of the pioneers of holography. "You can duplicate a hologram, and the duplicate becomes a master you can use for production."
Embossed holograms first turned up on credit cards as a security device in the 1980s. Today, software makers and CD manufacturers use them for package seals, and high-end clothing companies ranging from sports league to Italian runway designers have them on their labels. They're also found on driver's licenses, ID cards, tax stamps, and dozens of other places where they're meant to certify the genuineness of an article, whether it's a Microsoft program, a Chicago Bears T-shirt or a pair of Roberto Cavalli jeans.
But as the goods they certify become more valuable, the profit incentive to add counterfeit holograms to counterfeit goods has grown.
Now fake holograms are turning up everywhere, says Courtney Martin, who is the investigations coordinator for the Idaho-based Trademark Management Inc. The company counts sports league memorabilia makers among its clients -- vendors that sell a genuine pro or college league T-shirt for as much as $250. The leagues mark their products with holograms on the tags and labels.
"For a trained eye, it used to be easier to tell a fake, but the counterfeits are getting so much better," Martin says.
Law enforcement hasn't shown much enthusiasm for going after fake holograms. The FBI lists three cases involving counterfeited holograms since 1997, and when contacted, was only able to say the agency "is aware that there are individuals and/or criminal enterprise organizations that are actively involved in the production of holograms. These fraudulent holograms are being used to effectively produce false passports, driver's licenses, tax stamps and credit cards."
The bureau continues to actively investigate these matters, spokeswoman Catherine Milhoan notes.
The U.S. Secret Service sees and recognizes counterfeit holograms more regularly, but usually finds there's little they can do to prosecute. That's because a lot, perhaps the majority, of fake holograms are coming from overseas, mainly China, Korea, India and Russia.
"The Russian mob is a very, very entrepreneurial group," says Mitch Dembin, a former security advisor for Microsoft. "It's tough to enforce U.S. law against counterfeiting overseas, especially in countries where there's not much enthusiasm for intellectual property rights."
Holograms were never a great security device, Allen says.
"People put a lot of comfort and faith in it, but it's really the emperor's new clothes," he says. "They are dual purpose, for display and for security, and people forget the display end of it."
Holograms are made in the darkroom using special polymer film and laser equipment.
A laser beam is split, with one part shining directly onto the film, while the second part first bounces off the image being copied. Both images wind up impressed onto the polymer in a microscopic pattern that conveys dimension and movement.
The process amounts to deforming -- damaging -- the surface of the polymer, Allen says. Advanced holograms layer deformed surfaces and add things like numbers and microprinting to the film, but the end result is still a surface that can be copied.
Years ago, Allen talked with big companies and the government about simple changes that would at least enhance the security holograms provide, but he says he found they didn't want the cost of the holograms on identification and credit cards to jump from pennies to dollars. By then, the film used to make and copy them was common.
Microsoft's piracy team, one of the most conspicuous users of holograms as anti-counterfeiting tech, didn't return phone calls, but news reports show several serious piracy busts involving fake holograms, including one in 2001 where San Gabriel Valley, California, software pirates managed to duplicate the company's edge-to-edge hologram and apply it to an estimated $10 million worth of pirated software.
Fake holograms also undermine anti-counterfeiting practices erected by memorabilia and coin collecting groups, in which valuable collectibles -- like comic books, coins and baseball cards -- are sealed in bags with numbered holograms that a potential buyer can verify with special hologram reading-gear.
The biggest problem, Allen and others say, is that almost anyone can get a hologram printing machine now, often for less than $10,000, or simply order duplicates of a master hologram from dozens of hologram-making companies throughout the world.
"Twenty years ago, the technology to duplicate holograms was carefully guarded where now it's widely diffused," says Ed Dietrich, who has worked on hologram security issues for more than 20 years. "There are lots of little companies in China, for example, that make holograms now -- not to say that's good or bad, just that the technology is diffused."
Holograms can also go out the back door of the hologram printer --- saving counterfeiters the trouble of making them, industry experts say.
The International Hologram Manufacturers Association began a program to register holograms for their clients in 2003. About 70 manufacturers, mostly European, have signed up for the program -- a fraction of the manufacturers worldwide.
"The industry tries to police itself, but with limited success," Allen says. "Now that there are machines everywhere, I expect there are lots of counterfeit holograms -- either going out the back door of the legitimate manufacturer or just copied."
What really defeats the idea that holograms provide security is simply that few people have expertise and equipment to study them closely, and most consumers can't tell the difference between a reasonable counterfeit and the authentic item.
"Shiny does not a hologram make," Martin says. "For a trained eye, it used to be easy to tell a fake, but the counterfeits are getting far better than they used to be. The covert features aren't detectable by the human eye, so unless people are carrying equipment when they buy league clothing, they have to trust their eyes."