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Xerox Exploits Printer Flaws To Make Pseudo-Holograms
Red Wolf writes "A chance discovery by Xerox lets printers superimpose glossy images on regular printouts, creating the possibility for document authentication along the lines of holograms on credit cards. The new technology, called Glossmark, can use ordinary office printers to superimpose a glossy image on an ordinary printed document in a way that can't be photocopied or otherwise easily reproduced."
Who wants to let me borrow his credit cards?
It's not a bug, it's a feature!
If it's easily available on a commercially available printer, how does it provide great security?
Isn't running an already-printed page through a printer a violation of the DMCA or something?
Where the value of X-Mailer: is the true measure of a man...
way that can't be photocopied or otherwise easily reproduced
Uh, except for on another Xerox printer?
Any bug you can control is a feature! The big question in my mind would be... what would stop some enterprising individual from replicating this bug to forge the watermarks?
You couldn't copy the original image. You'd have to have to separate source images (the bg and the layover) to counterfeit successfully. It's just another wall, really.
And then Xerox gives up the technology, somebody else picks it up and makes a bundle.
Let's see... Mouse, GUI, Ethernet, Palm Graffiti, WYSIWYG word processors, and more
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
"Can be produced" isn't the same as "can be reproduced." Sure, I guess you could print out your own copies -- if you had access to the original images. If I understand correctly, most of the point is that you can't just scan the image and retain the glossmark effect.
From reading the article (yes I read actually read it), it would seem that only the "wax" type color laserjet printers have this ability. There was a Slashdot article a while back that dealt with color laser printers and alternatives to inkjets. The news.com.com article does specify the models or type of printers where this was discovered. Any other info on this?
I'm sure some hackers will try to do some mods on their printers to control this as well. {cough}fake holograms{/cough}
On another note, how cool a job do these "Xerox Scientists" have? I need to get a job where I can hardware hack like these guys.
MMORPG fan-boy? Prove your worth
I hope this gets used on currency too. It's already so easy to counterfit U.S. money, using Xerox printers. This would be an easily replicated security feature that would draw attention away from the flaws in the printing process.
So the ink is a little smudged, but look at the glossy square with JFK in it. It has to be real!
I don't want to sound like a killjoy, but what do you think will be the odds that Xerox lets the average person get their hands on this technology? More likely that they'll take out about half a dozen patents on every known way of implementing it and then enforce ridiculously high licensing fees on any product or organisation which tries to use it.
Bash script for FP whores
Companies are going to adopt this technology because they can create an "uncopyable" product (probably tickets, coupons, and other vouchers), and they already have the technology in their office.
In the mean time, some counterfeiter who has the same technology in their office or home will simply copy the main image and recreate the superimposed image in a graphics program. Then he will be able to print "authentic" tickets or whatever whenever he wants.
The number one blockade in stopping conterfeiters is the machine that produces the items they want to counterfeit, not the complexity of the artwork or image. Sure, the complex image and holograph help, but that is mainly because consumer level and most business level products can't produce images that complex. Give me a few months and I could make a damn good couterfeit $20 bill if I only had the paper and the press that makes them. It wouldn't be perfect, but the average cashier wouldn't notice.
If I drive fast enough at the red light, it'll appear green.
I'd like to see some details about how they do this. Our office just got a Xerox color laser printer and would probably use this for some non-security stuff.
When they say "current printers," it sounds like ours would just need a driver upgrade or something. I don't know how that's possible, but I don't know much about hardware and drivers. I'm also curious whether they'll charge for this new "feature" or just include it as an upgrade. Or whether it will only be available on newer high end printers despite working on current technology.
It doesn't look really useful for preventing professional counterfieting, but for "casual" things [retail reciepts, HR files, inter-company corrospandance, etc.] It could come in handy for quick verification.
Now this might be a stupid question but using this would it be possible to have say two pages imposed on one so you could "read" a book by twisting the page...
Just a thought
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
I suppose the next step would be ATMs that print money???
How can this be legal under the DMCA? I mean they are obviously circumventing their own protection scheme. Has anyone notified SCO, the MPAA, the RIAA, or better yet the FBI?!?!
Its just multilayer printing, its has NOTHING to do with a hologram.
Its interesting, though pretty much common sense, if you have run a sheet thru a printer 15 times.. ( and pray it doesn't jam.. the structure of paper is changed when it passes thru a fuser.. every time after that you risk paper jams. )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Yet another sad commentary on the rampant cover-ups of the true nature of the pseudo-hologram industry.
A man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what's an erection for?
Tickets to the Superbowl: $0
Credit card to charge up $9000 in stereo equipment: $0
Same credit card, Quad-CPU, 16 gigs RAM, 1 terrabyte machine with all the latest blings: $0
A lawyer that can use the "it was a bug in the printer" defense to successfully get you off: Priceless.
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
From what I gathered reading the article... this *technology* is about controlling the glossyness of certain areas on a printed page. I don't think it involves running printed pages back through the printer... instead words/images would be differentiated by their gloss relative to the flat ink surrounding them. Looking straight at a matt photograph one would see nothing unusuall but looking at an angle one could make out shiny text, the degree of gloss is controlled, hence the "invisible to the eye" option.
just my 2c,
-ry
It's already so easy to counterfit U.S. money, using Xerox printers.
Ahem, where exactly are you going to get the paper to print it on? US currency paper has a special cotton content that you can't get in the states, even by special order. And what about the "security stripe"? Nope, sorry.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - BF
No wonder Xerox is struggling. While other companies are busy developing new products Xerox techs are destracted by shiny objects.
"Oooh, shiny!!!"
I hope this gets used on US currency. Holograms haven't been used yet because they haven't survived the torture tests. Maybe this will fare better.
This tech takes advantage of the way laser printers melt toner to produce an image on paper. It would only work if currency was laser imaged. That won't happen b/c the process is too slow and it certainly wouldn't survive a torture test.
The drawback that I see is that it only works on images--plain text wouldn't have enough toner laid down to produce a noticeable image.
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
If you don't have sufficient access to the source that produces the hard copy (for instance, a locked PDF), how are you going to get a hard copy without the Glossmark on it? 'Cause, if all you've got is the hard copy with the hologram thing which can't be effectively scanned or copied, you're a bit stuck. (Unless you wanted to re-create the document, or re-create the Glossmark and hope people will think anything with it on it is authentic.)
mrg
First, this is nothing like a hologram. (Reporter: This is shiny, holograms are shiny, this must be a hologram.)
When you print continuous tone images with specific ink colors, you have to lay down tiny dots that cover, e.g. 30% of the paper with cyan, 20% magenta, 10% yellow, 15% black. The inks are then fixed in some way: heating, rolling, burnishing or whatever--details vary based on printing technology.
If you put down the ink so that the cyan and yellow dots are: separated by a small gap; or touching each other; or piled up on top of each other; you will get different print characteristics.
It may be e.g., that when wax-based ink drops are piled on top of each other, the burnishing gives it a glossy texture, while the same amounts of inks distributed in separate dots gives a matte finish. (This is just an example based on absolutly no specific knowledge.)
Postscript and other printer control languages are sufficiently expressive that the software can control where the ink dots go. This lets the glossiness be controlled.
This posting is probably a DMCA violation.
I don't live in america but if I remember correctly all your notes are the same size, wash a 1 dollar bill and print 100 on it... We can't do that in the UK cos 1,5 10, 20, 50... are all bigger than the lesser valued note. Umm... Not thatI'm condoning counterfeiting or was considering it ~*shifty eyes*~
Finally I can replace this candle wax and stamp sealer from the 1500's!
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
What are you saying, Xerox didn't invent those, App^h^h^h MS did! Just ask their PR department, they'll set you straight, and send you a free copy of 'MS History v3.0 - This time we got it right'.
-Charlie
(Yes, once again, sarcasm, I do know my history).
While I don't think Xerox printers can handle such small pieces of papter without choking, based on PBS and Discovery channel educational shows on the subject, you can obtain the paper from already printed bills or from foreign currency. Counterfeiters used to chemically remove the ink from small denomination bills and reprint them.
It's why the US Gov added that metal strip into the 20+ bills with the denomination written into them.
Dalton paper is used around the world for government documents, so the stuff is probably easier to find than you might think. The big deal is that being in posession of blank Dalton paper is a treasonous act in many countries.
Considering that the USA is at war right now, does this make counterfeiting a potentially capitol offense?
A lawyer that can use the "it was a bug in the printer" defense to successfully get you off: Priceless.
Paying that lawyer with the same card: even more priceless.
You might get the paper by bleaching one-dollar bills, but you damn sure ain't getting the press.
Yes, but then if you re-read the post you're replying to, that's exactly what he said. It's not the artwork that's stopping him from making a good counterfeit, it's the lack of ability to obtain the machinery to do it.
Making something "authentic" is relatively easy when the machinery is in every store. The Xerox machine can't make anything not easily counterfeited because everybody could get one cheaply and affordably, and then simply print out their own Glossmark crap.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
?
The document can still be reproduced, the point is -- the pseudo-hologram can not. If the document is missing the pseudo-hologram, you know that it has been duplicated.
The security would lie in the fact that it looks different from different angles. So if you scan it/photocopy it/whatever, you only get *one* angle on it, and thus there is no easy way to get a digitized version of the watermark to feed to that other Xerox printer.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
The US has never repudiated its currency, and is unlikely to do so, so a $20 printed before the addition of the polymer security stripe is still legal tender, if somewhat rare. If you were trying to reproduce high quality paper for counterfeit currency, you'd best aim for pre-polymer-strip bills. That will also save you from having to deal with some of the the other publically acknowledged anticounterfeiting measures (like microprinting, variable optical printing, etc).
Paper currency in the US is printed on paper that is 25% linen, 75% cotton fiber in content, with small amounts of blue and red silk fibers added into the pulp. There is no wood pulp.
Processing leaves the paper a uniform shade of beige or off-white, easily distinguished from most bleached paper. This color is also an anticounterfeiting measure, by the way, since its easily distinguished from white, and bleaching away the ink from an existing bill will likely change that color.
But only because some morons didn't get that the SI-prefixes were Base 2 when it came to storage capacity and Base 10 when it came to bandwidth. I mean, of course we have subtle little secrets and speak in code words, we're computer geeks goddammit.
The kibi-, gibi-, and tebi- are the new abominations (imo) used to describe the old-school Base 2, thus a kibibyte is 1024 bytes (whereas a kilobyte was 1024 bytes in the "good old days"), and now a kilobyte it 1000 bytes.
cat
And just out of curiousity, who exactly popped up and decided that a kilobyte was no longer 1024 bytes? I never heard of this.
The IEC. It isn't exactly a redefinition, since AFAIK kilobyte wasn't officially defined as a unit by many standards organizations. Kibi- and friends were coined because standards bodies are by their nature incredibly pedantic, so overloading the SI prefixes was out of the question.
There was an alternative proposal to prefix binary units with 'di-', so 1024 bytes would be a dikilobyte. In writing a subscript '2' would be inserted after the prefix, giving you something like K2b. You were explicitly allowed to keep saying 'kilobyte' in conversation. This system is vastly superior for any number reasons, which is why it wasn't adopted.
As far as I know 'byte' is still undefined, so while a one KiB is definitely 1024 bytes, no one can say how many bits it is.