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Photoshop Fails At Counterfeit Prevention
JediDan writes "Wired reports that the 'Anti-counterfeiting provisions in the latest version of Adobe Systems' flagship product have proven little more than a speed bump, but company representatives insist that including them was the right thing to do.' Kevin Connor, Adobe's director of product management for professional digital imaging said, 'As a market leader and a good corporate citizen, this just seems like the right thing to do.' Maybe if they didn't spend R&D time and money on useless features, their products would be more affordable."
Maybe if they didn't spend R&D time and money on useless features, their products would be more affordable
Please, stop making comments on what they should price their software until you take some rudimentary economics courses.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
The article says the counterfeit detection scheme was provided to them as a black-box piece of code. They didn't even develop it, and don't actually have any idea what it does or how it works! (Didn't a previous article include a fairly detailed explanation? Something about circles in the blue channel or something? Their solution? Request approved images directly from the government.
This flies in the face of science.
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Read Epic the first RPG novel.
No. The previous article was about Photoshop containing anti-counterfeiting measures. This article is about it being circumvented.
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As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
The poster just didn't RTFA
"The anti-counterfeit software in Photoshop CS was developed by the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group, an organization established by the governors of the G-10 central banks to promote the use of anti-counterfeit devices in the computer industry....The inner workings of the counterfeit deterrence system are so secret that not even Adobe is privy to them. The Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group provides the software as a black box without revealing its precise inner workings, Connor said."
Why would 99% of legitimate users ever need to scan a bill? I mean really... This seems to be much ado about nothing...
M.
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
This 'feature' is already trespassed! Take a look in this forum (Dutch, sorry). It says there that when you scan multiple bills you won't get an error, and even when you crop them one-by-one, you're still not stopped in your job. Screenshots available.
In need of reliable and affordable server monitoring?
Anyone who believes this must also believe that Microsoft is trying hard to lower costs but just can't do it. Face it, this software reflects what they think the market will bear, not what it costs to develop. A few years ago when Photoshop 5.x was out, they also had a "Lite" version that cost about half as much as full Photoshop. Thing was, you could also get the exact same licensed software free with a $100 Maxtor hard drive. Anyone who paid the full price for the "Lite" version was a real chump, but I'm sure there were plenty who did, and thought they were saving money after seeing the cost of the "Full" version.
Also, several years ago I had a friend who bought a scanner that came with a bundeled and fully licensed copy of the full version of Photoshop (NOT the "Lite" version). At the time scanners were expensive, but he still paid about half of what it would have cost to buy just Photoshop for a good scanner and a Full, legal, upgradeable Photoshop. (he got the Kai with it too!)
They could spend 1/10 of what they now spend on R&D, but they are not going to drop the product price by a penny while they think they can still get current prices. On the other hand, if you shop around you can sometimes get it at a much fairer price.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
The anti-counterfeiting part of the application was not developed by Adobe.
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From the article:
The anti-counterfeit software in Photoshop CS was developed by the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group, an organization established by the governors of the G-10 central banks to promote the use of anti-counterfeit devices in the computer industry.
The inner workings of the counterfeit deterrence system are so secret that not even Adobe is privy to them. The Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group provides the software as a black box without revealing its precise inner workings, Connor said.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Try making a damn $20 bill that doesn't look like Disney money, and maybe it'll be more difficult to counterfeit.
Seriously, the US was like, one of the last countries to finally put watermarks in their bills. Even Turkey had watermarks before we did. Turkey!
Of course, their money is made out of crappier fibers; it doesn't hold up nearly as well as a US bill. From some people who are world travellers, I'm told the people in other countries don't even bother spot-checking a bill to see if it's genuine. They feel it with their hands. Apparently, tt's pretty easy to distinguish the real paper from the fake.
So, ultimately, I think that intricate designs are no longer going to stop counterfeiters. What's going to work is making the composite materials more difficult to mimic. What I think they should do, and I think this would probably work, is to weave the fibers so that there is contrast built into the paper weave itself which spells out the denomination: twenty, ten, etc. All you'd have to do is look at it from an angle or hold it to the light to see the weave. That would make it much, much more difficult to counterfeit.
Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
Because that 'copy protection' is implemented by script on the Web Page - it's not an IE feature. Scripts can catch mouse events, but (rightfully so) have no control over browser menus.
Adobe doesn't even know how it works (it is a black box), not to mention having wasted any effort on it.
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Photoshop too expensive? Get Photoshop Elements. They basically took all the features that people use most in the non-professional arena and made an affordable version of Photoshop. Straight from Adobe it costs $99, which is definitely affordable to the non-professional user. If you need the full version, and own Elements, you can upgrade for the price difference of Photoshop and Elements. It's by no means a "crippled" version of Photoshop either. It even has features that aren't in the full version.
Between 1995 and 2002, the proportion of counterfeit bills that were digitally created grew from 1 percent to 40 percent
Correction: The proportion of counterfeit bills detected grew. I'm guessing that digital copies aren't as good as what the professionals use, and they're more easily detected -- the well made bills stay in circulation. Here's a cool pdf from the GAO that illustrates many types of counterfeits, including the superdollar.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
If you need an image of a banknote your central bank is required to provide you with an appropriate image. You just need to ask.
or even (gasp!) make novelty bills with my picture in the center. All of these are completely legit uses for scanning and manipulating currency...
Actually, if you knew the law, you would know that just taking a bill "as is", putting your own photo in the middle and reprinting it is only legal when following certain guidelines.
You can't make true novelty money that's similar except for your photo, if you really wanted to, you would most likely want it double-sided. That's illegal in the US. Also, you'd have to make it a a certain degree larger or smaller than legal tender, so as it's not easily passable.
Lots of artist use images of money, legally, in creation of their artwork. Therefore fighting counterfitting is a way to keep them from being able to do their job. You think that average graphics artist has the time to wait for a 2-3 week response for an image they can use when putting together something? Get real. It is legal to scan and use money in the US. It is illegal to print it in a form that looks like real money and if within 75% to 150% of real size. It is not illegal to print a piece of artwork that incorporates an image of money as part of the composition.
It seems like, from the backlash and speed problems of Photoshop CS, Photoshop 7 will be around for quite a while to come.
I was wondering about the Swedish thing too. Maybe he's thinking about Jon Johansen, the DeCSS GUI designer; some people don't seem to know the difference between Sweden and Norway.
Lalala
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In the context of protecting euro banknotes against counterfeiting the European Central Bank (ECB)invites manufacturers
based in the European Union (EU)and importers or
distributors of products capable of handling digital images
(hereinafter 'the industry ') to submit comments in connection
with the ECB's request to the Commission of the European
Communities to initiate legislation making it mandatory to
incorporate counterfeit deterrence technology into such
products.Such legislation would apply to products produced,
imported or distributed in the EU.Any individual,organisation
or group of organisations may submit comments.
The comment period closed December 19th, but it might still be worthwhile to send in comments if you're in the EU.Steven Murdoch.
web: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/sjm217/
I'm not familiar with this five dot pattern. Could you tell me where I could find an example of it? Either on the web or on the currency itself.
Sure... Check out this image (warning, a PDF)...
On the 10 Euro note pictured, you can see the pattern VERY well, as the author connected the relevant 5-dot groupings with green lines.
It looks vaguely like the Cingular logo, IMO, or perhaps a little headless stick-figure.
On the US $20, the pattern appears using the zeros from the repeated background "20"s, or so I've read (I haven't personally verified it).
You are a grade A top class MORON if you think you can recover a fingerprint from paper.
Ah, thank you. While you're at it, would you mind explaining how I just raised MY OWN FINGERPRINTS from a peice of paper not five minutes ago using some CrazyGlue and a toaster?
I admit the quality was was far from ideal. Parts of are quite clear and detailed and other parts are spotty. I am even able see the loops and whirls of one fingerprint on top of another fingerprint. And I'm not a law enforcement agency, I don't have a crime lab, I don't have real fingerprint equipment, I am not a fingerprint expert, I have ZERO training and ZERO real equipment. I'm just a random geek that happens to know that superglue vapors bind to fingerprints, and when heated it browns faster than plain paper. You then get a dark brown print image on lightly-tanned paper.
And just incase someone doesn't believe me, just look at any of the Google results for "fingerprints on paper".
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Apparently timothy didn't make it to the second page, where it was clearly stated that the Central Bank made the software and gave it to graphic app developers as a black box.
Maybe someone should clue timothy into the fact that "editors" are supposed to edit, not editorialize.
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