A method and system is disclosed for purposefully modifying the accessibility of information encoded upon an optical medium (1150) for indicating a state or history of an item associated therewith. In one embodiment, the modifying of the optical medium (1150) includes a device (1170) for purposefully damaging the optical medium (1150) when the information is initially accessed so that upon subsequent attempts at accessing the information on the optical medium (1150), the previous access to the information can be detected by the access errors purposefully generated. Thus, the present invention provides an effective technique for limiting illegal duplication and/or use of, e.g., software, movies, and music on compact disks and digital versatile disks. Moreover, the present invention is also useful for verifying the authenticity of persons and/or financial transaction cards during financial transactions.