Re: How to tell if a document is 6 years old...?

On Jul 31, 9:40 pm, Julian <julian.bor...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

How can I tell if a laser-printed (or inkjet-printed) document is 3
months or 6 years old?

Short answer is that you can't, at least not without spending insane
amounts of money, and even then it is doubtful. You would be down to
looking for inconsistencies in the printing technology, toners and
dyes available at the time. Forensic changes in the paper and dyes/
toner with elapsed time. Degradation of printed documents depends
sufficiently on ambient conditions like moisture, light, ozone that
you are probably on a hiding to nothing. You could carbon date the
paper, but any half competent forger would choose old paper or media
so again you are stuck. And a really competent one would print it on
contemporary period kit and accelerate the aging a bit on a windowsill
or environmental chamber.

You can prove that something was not printed when it claims if the
technology to do it did not yet exist at the time . An inkjet print
containing PhotoCyan and PhotoMagenta dyes would be very suspicious
pre 1998 for instance. "Original" laser printed Hilter Diaries would
raise more than few eyebrows although credulous historians have
famously been taken in by some pretty good handwritten fakes.

Regards,
Martin Brown

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