Faking government documents getting easier

Faking goverment issued documents has always been a problem but with sophisticated scanning and printing technology, it has become particularly difficult to circumvent, reports the Washington Post. In November 2005, a cook at a naval facility, Wenceslao Ramos-Andrade, sold fake documents to unauthorized immigrants but was caught by detectives in a government sting operation.

 "Unfortunately, the technology has gotten so much better in this country that it has become more difficult to determine which documents are real," [a police spokesman] said.

While the government has added barcodes to some resident alien cards, techology is already hacking the system. The faked documents are so good "that if the barcode on one of those resident alien cards is scanned it will come up with correct information," according to the charging document.