Enabling consumers to self-verify authenticity of products

Counterfeiting of mass-market products is becoming a phenomenon more and more widespread. Traditionally counterfeiting has been fought using both covert and overt security features applied to products packaging, or with track-and-trace technologies. However the possibility to verify authenticity is usually not available to final consumers with the possible exception of luxury goods. In this short paper we describe our proposal for a simple authentication system based on the use of public-key cryptography combined with a ID-barcode and an online product id verification system implemented on a smartphone app and available to consumers.