In the previous blog, I outlined the broad PRACTICE of preventing anti-counterfeiting. In today’s blog, I focus in on one specific technology which, if used properly, can help tips the odds in favor of the legitimate supplier and the concerned customer.

Variable Data Printing, or VDP, provides the capacity, if so desired, to vary every aspect of a print job. However, for ease of making the print run compatible with the graphic artist’s design for the label, package, document, or other printed material, variable data printing is usually associated with a database that is populated before the job is “ripped”; that is, set to final printing commands by the RIP, or raster image processor.

A simple VDP job is outlined here:

Static elements (background, brand logs, three empty copy holes)

Copy hole #1: Database for 2D bar codes

Copy hole #2: Database for unique text sequences

Copy hole #3: Database for watermarked images

When the RIP occurs, the static portion is printed quickly (usually stored in a cache for quick “ripping”), and then each of the copy holes is filled based on the reference for that printed material, pulling the correct bar code, text sequence or watermarked image from the database and rendering it to the copy hole.

In security VDP, or SVDP, the copy holes contain not only variable data, but usually uniquely variable data. Also, this variable data can be (but isn’t always) read by some type of inspection, authentication or forensic device. That is, the copy holes contain data. Most readers are probably familiar with mass serialization, but if not, I will describe that in more detail in an upcoming blog. Suffice it to say for now that mass serialization is a means of ensuring that each copy hole on each printed material—e.g. label, package or document—contains a different identifier that can be read (which means interrogated and the data encoded successfully interpreted).

Once you understand the power that variable data printing brings, it is universal acid—you realize it cuts through everything. And in this case, universal ACID means All Content Is Dynamic. Not just variable—but variably variable, or dynamic. Every element printed can be a variable copy hole and so our scenario above shortens to:

For every region on the printed material,
Copy from Database for that region

Thus, every region is novel, or unique identified, and so capable of being interrogated for its information. In anti-counterfeiting, we wish to provide a moving target for the would-be counterfeiters, staying one step ahead of them in the deployment of security features. However, this is a tedious game for us as well as the counterfeiters. SVDP offers us, however, an innate moving target—the ability to change the very nature of the variability on the fly. With SVDP, we have a way of providing a moving target without having to change our technology. VDP is the technology that provides a continual, built-in moving target. SVDP allows us to interrogate the information that is printed variably.

This means that SVDP extends variability beyond just having a different identifier in the variable copy hole. It provides a who, what, when, where, why and how variability to the security printing RIP.

Who varies the job can tie the set of deterrents deployed—and how they link together—to a particular press operator, SKU, brand, or other logical units. By linking, we mean how the set of variable features relate to one other. Examples of deterrent relationships include replication, hashing, sequence fragmentation [sharing the mass serialization data between two or more variable copy holes], and other techniques for making the multiple variable regions “cooperate” with each other. One particularly powerful method is to use one deterrent—usually one used for track and trace or authentication already—as the registry “look up” sequence from which the signed-in user may then obtain information on one or more other variable regions.

What is varied also depends on how many security deterrents the brand requires—some for track and trace, some for authentication, some for forensics, some just to decoy the would-be counterfeiters, some to be used in case of recalls or other contingencies, etc.

When the deterrents are varied—or more importantly when the variability pattern is changed can be tied to pragmatic product details, For example, if the shelf life of a product is 6 months, it makes sense to change the relationship between deterrents every six months, so expired products also exhibit “expired” security strategies.

Where the variability is provided can change, too. Variable regions can be made static, and static regions can be made variable, over time. This keeps the would-be counterfeiter grasping at straws, and yet can still accommodate using a consistent variable deterrent, such as a 2D barcode, over time.

Why the deterrents are made variable depends on the realities in the supply chain and in the hands of customers. If certain deterrents are being successfully attacked, then adding new variability to the printed material is another way of gathering information on who the counterfeiters might be—insidious insiders, for example, may quickly incorporate these new variable regions, even if they are not tracked by your authenticators, and so tip their hand to you.

Finally, how the variability is provided is up to you. With VDP, there are so many “how” possibilities that you are being remiss as a brand owner if you fail to do either of the following two VDP processes:

1) Make a plethora of regions variable

2) Change the relationship between the variable regions frequently

In other words, we vary the way we vary the variability at various times. It’s VDP to the nth. And the more variable regions you have, the more security bits you can print.

We have to assume that the counterfeiters are aware of all these possibilities. And, at first, they appear rather daunting to the would-be counterfeiter. But, counterfeiters don’t react the way we expect them to, and so we have to be prepared for the unexpected. To help illustrate this, in the next blog, I am going to show how we might set up and defend our own counterfeiting business! And who knows, maybe SVDP will pass even this test…