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May 22, 2004
Counterfeits and credibility
A recent Wired article by Brendan I. Koerner explains how HP, Adobe, and a couple others have made it harder for people to counterfeit money using their technology (e.g., printers won't print the full image of a bill, software won't save scans of currency). Restricting behavior isn't persuasion. But this article is relevant to our lab's work in another way: Forgery is all about establishing credibility. Last month I was in a Petaluma gas station when a teen tried to pay with a fake $20 bill. The cashier caught it, took the bill away, and sent the kid packing (who didn't act surprised; he just walked out). I asked the cashier if I could see the forgery, so he handed it over. The bill looked good to me, but the feel of it on my fingers was a bit off. If I were in a hurry, I would have accepted the fake as real. Time constraints change how we assess credibility. The less time we have, the more we rely on superficial features.Posted by at May 22, 2004 02:30 PM
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