The NYT reports that advances in simple technologies have made the fake ID extremely difficult to detect. Quotes:
Early last month, after being shut down by the police for two days for serving underage drinkers, the owners of the West End, a Manhattan bar and restaurant near Columbia University, deployed a new weapon in their continuing battle against fake ID’s: an E-Seek scanner, a high-tech age-verification device designed to tell a real driver’s license from a fake in a simple swipe.
But if the arrival of this fake-ID devourer – its manufacturer makes a similar hand-held model called the Buster – was supposed to strike fear in the hearts of aspiring beer guzzlers in the freshman and sophomore classes at Columbia, it hasn’t had quite that effect.
"Within a week I could be beating the West End no problem," said a Columbia student who claims to have forged over 400 driver’s licenses but said he stopped for fear of being arrested (and wanted his name withheld for the same reason). "If you know how to use Photoshop and a simple Epson printer, you can print ID’s in your dorm room."