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The parent post said: "There is no way to prevent 3D printers and CNC mills from being manufactured."

A true but unhelpful statement. My point was to look at how printers, copiers, scanners, and even image editing software have been modified to deter counterfeiting:

http://www.rulesforuse.org/pub...

It's not a stretch to imagine the same sort of restrictions being mandated for 3D printers and CNC machines.

> Let's just stop bagging on Adobe...

1. When I have to work around some bullshit because the image editor I paid for (b)locks me from even viewing what it thinks are high resolution scans of money ... Adobe can fuck off.

* https://www.google.com/search?...
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
* http://www.rulesforuse.org/pub...

2. When they start charging "rent" for software as a service ... Adobe can fuck off.

"According to CNET and various other sources, CS6 will be the last version of Adobe's Creative Suite that will be sold in the traditional manner. All future versions will be available by subscription only, through Adobe's so-called 'Creative Cloud' service. This means that before too long, anyone who wants an up-to-date version of Photoshop won't be able to buy it â" they will have to pay $50 per month (minimum subscription term: one year). ..."

"We've made it really clear to folks that you get the discounted price only for the first year," Morris said. "We're pretty confident that even when the price normalizes at the $50 list price, most of these customers are going to stay."

* Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001...

Translation: We're going to gouge customers whether they like it or not. $ucker$!

So no, we'll stop bagging on Adobe's crap once they stop being dicks not before.

Some software(Photoshop being the big name; but not exclusive to them) also includes this 'feature'. If you manipulate an image of a major world currency in excessive detail, a neat little binary module included with photoshop will snag you and direct you to this rather bland organization.

Incorrect, as long as you follow the rules. Rules For Use

You can read all the rules about copying money here: Rules For Use

"I seriously doubt Photoshop would stop you [printing bank notes], but that's just me. It seems a little pointless to have photo-editing software try to do that. "

Then be amazed, because it is in Photoshop CS (I don't know about later versions -- I presume it's there too). Without some fiddling (see the Wired article below), you can't cut-and-paste parts of a bank note image larger than a certain size, you can't open a file with a bank note image, you can't print it, etc.

Refer to this post, this /. article, this international government agreement that encouraged its "voluntary" implementation, and this Wired article describing how pointless it all is.

But the "feature" is definitely there, so I wouldn't put it past the RIAA/MPAA to ask software and/or hardware vendors to "voluntarily" comply with a similar request to hinder "prohibited" operations. The real question is whether vendors would be foolish enough to cave to them. Hopefully not.

Not all uses of banknote images are prohibited. For example, a one-sided illustration of a U.S. Federal Reserve Note not between 75% and 150% of actual size is a fair use. Some people have shown how some of the anti-counterfeiting technologies interfere with fair use of banknote images.

The website is owned by the european central bank and has linked listing rules of use for currency images for numerous countries.

The relevant Canadian legislation can be found at http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/banknotes/legislatio n/457code/

I find it quite amusing that this page about the legality of duplicating images of Canadian currency contains, in the upper right-hand corner... a partial image of Canadian currency.

I was glad to see that the Rules for Use site links to many different countries. However, I wonder in these sorts of cases, how many companies program their software to take into account the appropriate national law (and how are they going to know which one to apply, by reading some user-configurated environment setting?)

I suspect "make the software comply with US law (or US industry requests)" is the default position, which ends up forcing this on anyone in any country who uses the software.

Euros too, and many more. I guess at least all that are mentioned at rulesforuse.org

This one is specific to US bills and this one is the parent site.

I just tried it with the latest version of Paint Shop Pro and it does the same thing, whether opening the image as a file or attempting to paste it into an existing image:

"This application does not support the unauthorized processing of banknote images."

It includes this interesting link as well. As a geek, my immediate response was "how does this work??" :)

I wonder how many other law abiding citizens, who would have never considered scanning and printing US currency, have done so tonight just because of this story?

My experience:
I scanned a crisp new $20 at various resolutions, color and black and white, from the TWAIN interface in Photoshop, and Photoshop CS refused to handle the image. It simply displayed a warning dialog and suggested visiting www.rulesforuse.org. The bill did scan as line art, so the algorithm must do some fine detail pattern matching, as opposed to detecting colors or sizes.

The bill was successfully scanned into Paint Shop Pro 7. Even when printed at 1440dpi, it is obviously counterfeit, but that didn't stop me from accidently mistaking it for the real bill when I had set it aside for a few minutes while doing other work. And this is simply printed on one side on normal inkjet paper, cut out freehand with scissors, and not even color matched.

So I guess the real lesson here is if you tell someone you can't do something, they are more likely to try it out. I just saw a show on the History Channel about the history of US currency, and afterwards, I didn't even have the slightly notion of scanning and printing out a bill. But here I am, after skimming an article on Slashdot, with a fake (but probably passable) $20 bill.

Now I'm an adult, and I understand the necessity of preventing counterfeit currency and the punishment given to counterfeiters, so I have no desire to do anything more than this quick test. But I can only imagine how many 14 year olds are cranking out their own bills tonight, thanks to Adobe!