report
1.9.5 Security: Application Profile: Anti-counterfeiting and Authentication

Short application description

Anti-counterfeiting and authentication technologies are intended to ensure that a physical product is genuine and not a copy. Fake goods have a substantial economic cost, in terms of lost sales of genuine clothing, music or films. In the case of engine parts or medicine, fakes may also be life-threatening.

Oxonica, which has a subsidiary working on authentication technologies, reported that counterfeiting led to lost revenues of €600bn in 2003. At a European level, the company claims that this lead to a loss of €65bn, or the equivalent of 200,000 jobs[1]. (Note that the methodology used to reach these estimates is not wholly reliable; not every fake good sold represents the loss of a sale of a genuine good).

These technologies may also be used to identify as unique instances of an item, in addition to item classes. For example, a product may be able to be authenticated as being from a particular manufacturer or factory, but also as being a specific item produced at a certain time and date. Identifying a unique item could also involve identifying its location, as with RFID.

Laser Surface Authentication

One application of nanotechnology to this problem is laser surface authentication. This involves taking an image of the surface of an object and storing this pattern as a code. This leads to almost completely unique coding - the chances of two pieces of paper having the same surface features a 1 x 10^72.

Physical Unclonable Function

A technology developed by Philips Research, PUP involves the combination of information about a physical layer, cross referenced to a digital signature, with both required for successful authentication.

Magnetic Methods

Singular ID has developed a technology which involves integrating a random pattern of magnetic material into a tag - one of the benefits being that the tag itself could be made of a variety of materials such as plastic, metal or glass. The magnetic pattern, unique to each tag and with sufficient variability to enable identification of billions of items, can then be read using the giant magnetoresistance (GMR) effect, also employed in hard drive read heads.

Oxonica also employs a material which is capable of storing a unique magnetic pattern; in this case ‘striped' magnetic rods of sub-micron lengths.

Surface Emission Raman Scattering (SERS)

Nanoplex, acquired by Oxonica in 2005, has developed biomarkers based on gold nanoparticles. These nanoparticles exhibit exponentially increased scattering efficiency, and when combined with reporter molecules adhered to their surface, can be designed to return a distinct SERS spectrum. These tags are nanometer-scale, robust, and are able to be read by handheld raman detectors[2].

Document Materials

Another application of nanotechnology is to make materials for identification documents, which are hard to replicate and can be used to store additional material. A group at the University of Toronto had developed a three layer sandwich of polymer films (containing anthracene, NBD and Nile Blue), and were able to store an item of biometric data on each of the layers.

Functional requirements

Secrecy

As a safeguard against being compromised, the security competent should be as far as possible undetectable. In some cases it may be worthwhile to combine a visible security element as an obvious deterrent, whilst also including a hidden security component.

Uniqueness

To identify a specific product, there must be a very low chance that the identifying element would occur in another tag or item. In practice this means that an identification element should have a less than a billion to one likelihood of appearing again by chance.

Replicability

To provide robust security, the identifying element should not be able to be recreated outside of the system that originally created it.

Systems Integration

Any system is only as secure as its most insecure point. Whilst the identifying methods themselves may be almost impossible to replicate, similar care must be taken to ensure that interrogation methods and identifier databases are equally as hard to compromise.

Cost

The expense of an authentication system is clearly an important factor, especially when considering goods which are made in quantities that reach hundreds of millions. From this perspective, technologies such as laser surface authentication that don't require adding anything to the product itself may be more cost effective. Costs may also be incurred by authentication methods which add extra steps or reduce the speed of a production process.

Privacy

Privacy considerations should also be taken into account. In general, only information which is needed to authenticate the product should be collected, and not information about the product in use.

Ease of Use

The difficulty of using the identification feature should be in proportion to the frequency with which it would need to be identified. Aircraft parts could conceivably require specialised identification equipment, but consumer goods would require an easy, portable solution.

Flexibility of Application

This chapter has already discussed a wide range of items which may need to be indentified, each of which has a variety of form factors and materials. A universal identification method would need to be able to be used in each of these applications.

Boundary conditions

A tracking system must return unique results, with sufficient variation to avoid repetition of codes and results.

Product examples

SingularID's Enxure

Enxure is a security system which includes tags with a random assortment of magnetic features, and a handheld scanner (which can be connected to a mobile phone or computer). The tags can be attached to a label or incorporated within a product itself.

Sol-ID ^TM by Oxonica Security

Sol-ID ^TM biomarkers are functionalised gold nanoparticles which provide distinct spectral signatures. Oxonica claims that the particles can be applied during normal printing methods.

Economic Information and Analysis

Current sales of nanotechnology-enabled products in the authentication market are likely to be around €10M. As a listed company, Oxonica is one of the few firms in this space that reveals its revenue. In 2007, the company's security division recorded sales of £490k (€550k - though note significant devaluation of the British Pound since 2007). The company additionally recorded orders valued at $2.15M (€1,72M) for delivery in 2008[3].

DataDotTechnology Limited recorded sales of AUS$ 5,301,564 (€2.7M) in 2008. 

Selected Key Companies Profiles

Singular ID

SingularID (http://www.singular-id.com) sells the Enxure security system, a combination of magnetically patterned tags and a scanner. The company was acquired by Bilcare on 7^th January 2008 for 19,58M Singapore Dollars (approximately 10 M€)

Ingenia Technology Limited (ITL)

Ingenia (http://www.ingeniatechnology.com) develops Laser Surface Authentication (LSA) technology for product authentication. The company's technology is based on work carried out by Russell Cowburn at Imperial College London.

DataDot Technology Limited / Data Trace DNA

DataDot Technology (http://www.datadotdna.com) is listed on the Australian stock exchange with the ticker symbol DDT. DatatraceDNA is a joint venture between DataDot and CSIRO, and develops nanoparticles which can be added to a product during manufacture (or applied as a lacquer) and which then enable authentication of the substance.

Oxonica Security

Oxonica (http://www.oxonica.com/security/security_intro.php) develops SERS tags, which have applications as a biomarker and in brand protection systems.

 

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[1] Oxonica, http://www.oxonica.com/security/security_intro.php

[2] Going for the Gold: Multiplexed Optical Detection Tags Based on SERS-Active Gold Nanoparticles, http://www.oxonica.com/_get_file.php?file=45_1_perspective_nb0207.pdf&cat=press_articles

[3] Oxonica Interim Result, 22/09/2008 http://www.londonstockexchange.com/LSECWS/IFSPages/MarketNewsPopup.aspx?id=1964603&source=RNS