Yoko Taro won't tell you how he put DRM into his signature. But he did, somehow. And with that special technique, Neir: Automata's creator can tell that "nearly half" of all autographs claiming to be from him are fakes.
This was revealed in a post on X, where he denounced a specific signature someone else had posted. "This autograph is a fake," his post reads. "I include small unknown features in my real autographs to prevent reselling, so I can tell when one isn’t genuine."
This post led to a set of replies that were equally fascinating and predictable. If Yoko Taro has some way of doing autograph DRM... what is it? People showed off their autographs, with many trying to figure out what exactly is going on.
At this point, results are best described as 'inconclusive'. There's no shortage of slight variations in all the posted signatures, so pinpointing a single feature or style is difficult. The only person who knows the difference between a cheap fake and a genuine article seems to be Yoko Taro himself.
With most varieties of anti-piracy, they're most effective when its methods are kept very secret — and this looks to be no...
