Using the fibre structure of paper to determine authenticity of the documents: Analysis of transmitted light images of stamps and banknotes.

A novel method is presented for distinguishing postal stamp forgeries and counterfeit banknotes from genuine samples. The method is based on analyzing differences in paper fibre networks. The main tool is a curvelet-based algorithm for measuring overall fibre orientation distribution and quantifying anisotropy. Using a couple of more appropriate parameters makes it possible to distinguish forgeries from genuine originals as concentrated point clouds in two- or three-dimensional parameter space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]