It's intended to prevent people from printing money! That is the whole reason. With so many new color printers out there, with great quality, anyone could just print whatever cash they want. But with this code embedded, the individual printer machine can be traced, to the owner. So if machine can't scan, or print, what's the point of security? Document mastering is not the problem. It's the production they are securing. Also why the secure code covers the entire sheet. Else you could spend $2 to print one or two 100$ bills per sheet.. in a clear area..