eli5: How was the authenticity of a foreign passport ensured, before cryptographic signatures there a thing?
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Mostly by high fidelity production methods that were prohibitively expensive to counterfeit.
As part of diplomatic relationships, countries would tell each other what copy protections they’d implemented.
Stuff like complex, small filigree on the page, UV ink, “holographic” elements, etc are all things that require large, expensive machinery and expertise to produce. This could be cost effective if your going to print 20 million passports as a government, but outrageously expensive to do for 20 passports for a criminal gang. Thus, you keep passport fraud to a acceptably low level.
Other elements include just ringing up the national embassy of the issuing country and asking them to verify the serial number against the central records (obviously this isn’t a quick process, especially pre computerised databases)
Also, if a certain national passport was often counterfeited, you might just stop accepting it as proof of id.
It’s worth noting that historically, most people didn’t HAVE passports. Up until the early 20th century, generally only diplomats and nobility had them, the commoners didn’t really have any national identification. Borders were much more porous than today. It was only during the world wars that the modern standards of “no passport, no entry ” became the norm.
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