Digital fingerprinting

A method of authenticating an article of clothing, comprising:

• providing a machine-readable identifier on an exterior surface of an article of clothing, the machine-readable identifier comprising a digitally printed image having a plurality of predefined discrete areas, and wherein the image includes a cipher at each of the plurality of predefined discrete areas, the cipher comprising at least one of a symbol, a color, or a geometric shape, and wherein the ciphers from the plurality of predefined discrete areas are representative of an authenticity of the article of clothing attached thereto;
• receiving a scan of the machine-readable identifier to detect the ciphers at each of the predetermined discrete areas, and wherein a plurality of the ciphers encode an encryption key that is uniquely associated with the article of clothing;
• processing the scan of the machine-readable identifier to extract the encryption key encoded in the plurality of ciphers;
• accessing a digital token associated with the article of clothing using the extracted encryption key;
• and
• authenticating the article of clothing based on authentication of the digital token.