Holograms suck as a security measure. Crooks can set up a hologram-cloning lab for $2,500. It used to be more expensive, but as the number of companies using holograms to denote authentic items — credit cards, sports memorabilia, software, music, even booze — increased, the cost of making holograms fell, and now they're totally meaningless. Of course, these companies can't afford not to go on putting useless holograms on their items, because if they do, their genuine goods will be taken to be fakes!
Holograms were never a great security device, Allen says.
"People put a lot of comfort and faith in it, but it's really the emperor's new clothes," he says. "They are dual purpose, for display and for security, and people forget the display end of it."…
The most effective way to counterfeit holograms, mechanical copying, costs about $2,500 in lab costs to turn out essentially perfect copies. The profit margins make that justifiable to crooks. Consider a hologram-secured Johnny Walker Scotch Whiskey label. A counterfeited bottle of whiskey costs about $2, and an inexpensive hologram makes it look like the $16 genuine article…
"There is no evidence to date that any of the manufacturers keep accurate records of the number of holograms that are made or shipped," he notes. "There is no serial numbering on holograms and no formal association of security hologram manufacturers."
