Word: forger
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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...technique is remarkably simple. First, the forger uses an optical scanner to turn a legitimate document into a digital image stored in the computer's memory. Then, using a so-called paint program, which is an electronic version of an artist's drawing kit, he alters the image to suit his purposes -- adding zeros to the dollar amount, say, or deleting the payee's name and substituting his own. Finally, the altered document is printed out on a laser printer or, for best results, on a professional typesetting machine...
There are plenty of ways to defeat the desktop forger. The Standard Register company in Dayton, for example, sells a complete line of aids, from artificial watermarks that can be seen from an angle but are invisible to document scanners, to specially treated paper stock that, when tampered with, displays the word VOID in English, Spanish and Latin. But the counterfeiters do not seem daunted. A man in Boston used computer-faked checks and purchase orders to buy computer equipment. A couple in Phoenix made the rounds of the local liquor stores and check-cashing agencies with phony paychecks stamped...