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."

Comments

not like we haven't seen this before

[fugu]

great, another protection mechanism that's easily sidestepped by the real crooks but manages to irritate legitimate users

Re:not like we haven't seen this before

[LearnToSpell]

Maybe you want to use it in a project. Maybe you collect money. Maybe you want to sell it on eBay. There are a million different reasons, and throwing that legitimate in there is pretty dumb. Why should 99% of law-abiding citizens care about cameras in the streets?

Re:not like we haven't seen this before

[UserChrisCanter4]

The last time this feature was mentioned, someone cracked a joke about rap album covers. While a small niche, scanning money for non-counterfeit purposes is certainly not out of the question. Beyond making a dorky rap album cover, I might also want to make a parody of said genre, or even (gasp!) make novelty bills with my picture in the center. All of these are completely legit uses for scanning and manipulating currency, and the anti-counterfeiting software is ignoring the fact that (as far as I understand) getting passable paper is the toughest part of the equation.

Re:not like we haven't seen this before

[dave420]

The paper is definitely the hardest thing to get right. Copying an original note on a drum scanner removes the need for currency plates, but you can't substitute currency paper. It's so identifiable to the touch. Couple that with the watermarking and metal strip, and you've got some difficult paper to get hold of ;)

Re:not like we haven't seen this before

[autophile]

Why would 99% of legitimate users ever need to scan a bill?

I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. Why would 99% of legitimate users need to cut out a cat from one image, paste it into the Houston city skyline, add some UFO's, and then add the tagline, "I, for one, welcome our new feline overlords." ???

And then add a guy throwing money at the cat?

Don't presume to know why a user would want to user a particular feature.

--Rob

Re:What were they thinking?

[mutewinter]

Hmm sounds just like software companies that are conned into spending boatloads of money on elaberate copy-protection schemes which are broken in days instead of hours.

The trick is

[chadw17]

somewhat clever, but nothing too impressive. Import needed currency image from another program, even earlier versions of Photoshop, then use, save, print as usual, no more image checking is done.

Rather than blast Adobe for including this, a better idea in my opinion is to be somewhat grateful that there's no constant checking in place to waste CPU cycles, or slow down graphic developers everytime an image is saved or loaded.

Useless R&D increases cost

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

Maybe if they didn't spend R&D time and money on useless features, their products would be more affordable.

No kidding. And that only starts the downward spiral. Once your software is over a couple hundred dollars a lot of people who would like to pay for it can't afford it. Those people either use it without paying for it, or don't use it at all. Either way, they aren't paying, which leads to a further increase in cost to the remainder who are buying. And on and on...

I almost choke when I see the prices on some of the software bundles, especially Adobe.

Re:Useless R&D increases cost

[Chess_the_cat]

Nonsense. Photoshop is a tool for professionals. Professionals can afford it. If you're not a professional you don't need it and it's not being marketed to you anyway. Get Paintshop or become a graphic artist.

Re:Useless R&D increases cost

[Anonymous Coward]

So how do you become a professional without experience?

This was the problem with Maya et al. Can't get a job without experience, can't afford $10K in software without the job. Maybe that's why there are finally free Maya personal editions now.

Re:Useless R&D increases cost

[Joe Decker]

Not only is this a very elitist statement,

I think I hear it differently than you do, I disagree. I see Photoshop as a program very much aimed at a very real group of people who spend and make significant amounts of money doing graphics, photography or other art. There are other programs, such as Photoshop LE, Photoshop Elements, Paint Shop Pro, and the GIMP which serve different markets with more or less success, all at lower prices, some free, or free bundled with hardware. But suggesting that a program that feeatures built-in support for the raw file format of a $7,000 camera isn't marketed at someone who complains about a $600 price tag isn't elitist, it's simply obvious. Me, I have that $7K camera, I need that feature, and $600 is absolutely a reasonable amount to pay for the overall functionality, for me.

It'd be cool to have a Humvee, too, and I could use some of its special functionality here and there, but it's too expensive for what I would use it for. I don't think they should stop making them just because of that, though, nor do I think the price is necessarily wrong for people who have different uses for it than I do.

This whole $600 diatribe on this thread, with regard to the anti-counterfitting measures, is nonsense anyhow. The same measures are almost certainly in Photoshop Elements. The idea that the cost of the anti-counterfitting software is substantial is shown to be false by that fact alone.

How are you going to aquire experience and practice, if you're unable to use the necessary tools?

I'd suggest looking at Adobe's student pricing, if you're serious about learning.

Re:Useless R&D increases cost

[Lord_Dweomer]

"I'd suggest looking at Adobe's student pricing, if you're serious about learning."

And I'd suggest you take a good look at how Adobe maintains its marketshare today. They offer student pricing, but guess what, many students still don't have the money for it. Yet millions of college students always seem to have the latest photoshop. And when they go work for a company, that company is going to have to buy a copy of Photoshop for them if they're doing graphics work.

Adobe is shooting itself in the foot here. They make the VAST majority of their money through corporations. So far, they've done very well by hooking the college students and such by letting them use the pirated version and not really doing anything about it. Then these people go on to use fully paid versions once they're at a company. Adobe is just getting greedy and if they ever do find a way to SERIOUSLY clamp down on piracy of Photoshop, they're just might start to see a decline in market share.

Good faith effort?

[dustmote]

I'm sure they weren't really trying to make it impossible to counterfeit, because it would make so many other image processing tasks more difficult, or at least increase the program's overhead. All they have to do is make a cursory effort to sort of say that they tried. Then again, I'm not too clear on the reasons for doing that either, maybe good PR? Still, it seems like it should be pretty readily apparent that this is an impossible task. They probably stopped all the fourteen year old kids counterfeiting perfect 20s, though.

umm

[Coderstop]

"Maybe if they didn't spend R&D time and money on useless features, their products would be more affordable"

They didn't spend any R&D time on the anti-counterfeiting aspect of Photoshop CS.

From the article - "The anti-counterfeit software in Photoshop CS was developed by the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group"

Also, their products are priced fairly for the power they have. Photoshop in particular is an invaluable tool, and it's easily possible to get back the money you've invested in it by using it to design many different types of media.

What R&D money?

[Sklivvz]

From the article: 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.

So Adobe just plugged in an OCX in their program or something similarly easy. It's not this "feature" that bloats the price tag, I'm afraid.

Also, why all this secrecy on the "inner workings" of the software, when it's so easily circumvented (e.g. copy and paste from another app)? Why should scanning money be illegal? It's ridiculous - it's like banning knives because they could be dangerous. It's not the technology, it's the use you make of it. I don't understand why politicians fail to understand this simple concept: technology is not evil or good, it does not pose new moral problems. It's always the same problems, just with a different twist in the details.

Photoshop

[mrmcwn]

It was third party code, no? Thus it had little effect on their profit-making.

Photography boards

[mtrupe]

I am an amatuer photographer. Its really funny how just about EVERYONE I know who is into photography has a copy of photoshop. Hmmm... They can't afford a new $500 flash, but they can afford $500 for Photoshop.

Its obvious to me the Photoshop is way, way overpriced. Now, Adobe is free to charge whatever they want for it, but the average Joe is not willing to dump $500 on software.

True, counterfeiting software is not a "right", but its bound to happen when companies overcharge. Why do you think people are so quick to download music and copy CDs?

Re:Photography boards

[Joe Decker]

I am an amatuer photographer. .... Its obvious to me the Photoshop is way, way overpriced.

I am a professional photographer. It is obvious to me that Photoshop is worth every penny.

Re:Photography boards

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt adobe really cares. They sell to professionals who have the money. They know amatuer photographers don't have that kind of money. They don't care. They could sell it at $50 a pop and have more customers but I'm sure they've done the math and know they'll make more money selling it at $500 despite fewer customers at that price. And they don't lose sleep over the amatures using warezed copies because some of those amature will become pros and then buy a copy. Its a market segmentation thing.

Price

[RealityMogul]

Maybe if they didn't spend R&D time and money on useless features, their products would be more affordable

First off, every company spends time/money for R&D on features or products that never even reach the consumer, let alone generate a profit. Any company that hasn't done so would take over the entire planet in a short amount of time.

Secondly, Photoshop has been expensive for the last decade. Do you really think they sat down 10 years ago and budgetted 50 million dollars to add an anti-counterfeitting feature? You charge what the market can bear. And the market has been able to bear a $700 price tag (or whatever they're charging). As proof of this, I submit the fact that Adobe is still in business.

It's fine to whine about MS charging $XXX for products that aren't anywhere near the best tool for any job, but Photoshop is an incredible tool and worth every penny.

americentric criminals

[theMerovingian]

Does it only detect features on American currency? I would much prefer to bootleg money from a country that wouldn't hunt me down with a "Secret Service", if I were a criminal.

Re:YRO?

[timeOday]

Do you honestly think this thing will stop counterfitting? What I *do* expect sometime soon is a web page full of images that have nothing to do with counterfitting but which can't be edited with photoshop because of false positives.

Never assume that a device, law, or drug does exactly what it's supposed to do, and nothing else.

Re:Economics

[Mr. McGibby]

How about, instead of insulting people and their intelligence, you give us a easy to understand explanation of why this person is wrong since you imply that you know so much about economics.

Re:YRO?

[Austerity Empowers]

I think the point is that including anti-counterfitting measures in a product that is designed ostensibly to touch up photo's is both ridiculous and inappropriate.

Counterfeiting is specifically illegal, and is Not Our Right Anywhere, I did not see any suggestion or insinuation that it ought to be. However, having to pay a "big brother tax" for ill-conceived or impossible to implement "crime prevention" features is an idea that many find offensive.

On the other hand, while almost everyone I know uses photoshop, almost no one I know has actually paid for it, or could afford it. Obviously their crime prevention abilities are somewhat limited :)

Re:Economics

[Anonymous Coward]

How about, instead of insulting people and their intelligence, you give us a easy to understand explanation of why this person is wrong since you imply that you know so much about economics.

I have no training in the finer points of Economics, but I'd place a guess that Adobe's marketing of Photoshop as a premium piece of software is bolstered by their price. When a $600 piece of software sits beside a $30 competitor, which is the average person going to take more seriously? This sort of thought is probably not much different between the sale costs for a Mercedes Benz, or fashionable clothes. A sort of "eliteness" aura is established by making certain only those who can afford it, and those who are serious about their craft, own it.

Another factor you might want to consider for the high price of Photoshop (and other Adobe products) is that this is the price consumers are willing to pay for their product. One charges as much as their consumers are willing to pay. Why would you want to make $20 when you can make $300 a pop?

Well, that's my opinion. I don't know a hell of a lot about Economics, but I thought I'd share my thoughts and what I do know. Anyone else care to shed light on the matter?

Photoshop providing QA to counterfeiters?

[John M Ford]

Can a person now use Photoshop as a QA test on how good their fake bills are?

If Photoshop accepts an scan of a fake bill, it is not a good fake. If Photoshop doesn't, it is. Just a thought.

John

Legal requirements aren't technical specifications

[dpbsmith]

What gripes me and frightens me about technical means of enforcing legal requirements is that they are ALWAYS wrong. They always overreach in the direction of whatever large interest asked to have them put in. As the article makes clear, "Adobe is actually exceeding the requirements of U.S. law, which allows color reproductions of U.S. bank notes so long as the reproductions are smaller than 75 percent or larger than 150 percent of actual size."

There are probably other rights, as well. If, for satirical purposes, I want to produce an altered image of $20 bill with a portrait of George Bush or Bart Simpson or my grandmother on it, I believe that is legal. As long as the final product isn't a counterfeit, the fact that there may be intermediate images in RAM that would be counterfeits if printed shouldn't matter.

Similarly, DRM systems don't check to see whether what you want to do is fair use, whether the supposedly copyrighted material is actually in the public domain, etc.

No, these systems are always quick, dirty, and one-sided. And it's always "prior restraint." The software stops you from exercising what may well be your legal rights without due process, without imposing any burden of proof on the entity on whose behalf it is acting, without any appeal (other than returning the software for a refund)...

There is no way to accurately map the complexity of the legal system, which is designed for processing by human brains, into a software specification, for a program to be executed by a computer. All attempts to do so are injurious to the rights of one party or the other. Oddly enough, the injured party always seems to be the consumer.

Re:GIMP plugin?

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Then explain to me why I can use my Wacom Graphire3.

GIMP does work with drawing tablets, and it works absolutely great.

The only problem was one single (as in just that one) version of GTK2 that had broken Xinput support, but it was fixed rather quickly.

So if you would be so kind as to remove your head from your rectal cavity and go check up on some facts before posting unfounded idiocy.

Getting the paper....

[mustangsal66]

Yeah cause hi-rag(no not exact obviously) content paper isn't available at staples, and the 16 year old at the window at McDonalds can tell the difference, or even cares. How many times does the street vender look at your $10 bill when you buy a dirt water dog or a pretzel... He shoves the money in his apron, and reaches (usually with the same hand) for your food.

Color histogram

[Lehk228]

I suspect that the bill detection uses the color histogram of the image along with the aspect ratio, such a technique would have few false positive and be fairly accurate for detecting money

R&D? Ha!

[SpamJunkie]

Maybe if they didn't spend R&D time and money on useless features, their products would be more affordable

Ha! I doubt Adobe is spending much money on Photoshop R&D. The program is finished, basically. The only features they've been adding for the last little while - text on a path, layer sets, layer sets within layer sets, scaling layer effects - are all features that have been obvious for many versions and that users have been screaming for.

All Adobe is doing now is slowly adding obvious features that should have been there many versions ago. Some, like non-square pixels, seem particularly glaring but others, such as text on a path, are more underhanded.

And if you think this is a new trend, think of the hundred layer limit. The only reason the limit ever existed was to increase sales of the next version. So lame.

Currency listing?

[phorm]

I mentioned this in the previous article, but how about currency listings? Maybe I want to print out which currencies belong to specific countries. Maybe I want my employees to know what a real (insert X denomination) bill looks like.

Both are not as uncommon as one might think, and perfectly legitimate uses.

Any measure which blocks a vast array of legitimate uses in order to hamper a small group performing illigitimate use it stupid. How many times will we pay for somebody else's money-copying/piracy/etc/etc

The whole point

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole point of this feature isn't to stop professional crooks or legitimate use! It's just a "no trespassing" sign for people who aren't very savy. No one's going to stop counterfieting, but this feature will severly discourage a dumb teenager from printing money, and it will make it harder for low-income people to buy a cheap computer at Goodwill and print thier own money. If you know how to use Photoshop, you probably can spend five minutes learning how to break the protection. Adobe is just trying to prevent a flood of phoney money once computers become cheap enough that very low income people can afford them. We should thank them for being responsible enough to not devalue cash.

Adobe needs to learn from others

[snatcheroo]

Perhaps Adobe should mimic the approach that Alias uses with Maya. Offer it free for non-commercial use. Then they wouldn't be wasting resources on useless security measures.

Re:What were they thinking?

[smittyoneeach]

For whom? The $ dependency reaches from the US Government into the taxpayer wallet.
IOW, maybe we should all buy the rest of the product, as we're already subsidizing it anyway.
I guess I could warm to the nannyism, if it actually prevented lawbreaking.
I have no way of knowing, but I Guess the Illegitimate Might Procure something else for their dark deeds.

Bad Slashdot Post.

[twofidyKidd]

This is easily the worst post I've ever seen on Slashdot. The Poster didn't read the article, and his conclusions are senseless. Furthermore, no one's rights are infringed upon if Adobe decides to add a feature that deters counterfeiting. Since when is it anyone's right to counterfeit money? Let's say that isn't your intention and you simply want to use the image of currency in a composition, you mean to tell me you can't find an image elsewhere? Get real. Adobe added a feature to their software package to deter counterfeiting so that they could presumably sleep better at night. They probably understand that it won't stop everyone as there is always some determined individual out there that will find a way. With what they added to PS, it should at least stop some 14 year old kid who gets it in his head to start making some bills to spend on video games and skateboard trucks.

As for the prohibitive pricing of PS, speaking as a graphic design professional, I am perfectly fine with the pricing. If you're going to pirate it, and then try to compete against me for GD business, be prepared to have the BSA called on you. I'm tired of hearing, "...Well my 15 year old daughter could make me a website/flyer/brochure/logo/etc." If you can't afford to own it as a professional, then you have no business using the software in any other way other than for educational purposes. Go download GIMP otherwise.

Re:YRO?

[Asic Eng]

Get back to me when your govenment mandates that *all* image processing software *must* include that feature

Hmmm - but do you think the right time to complain about things like that, is when they already made their way into the law? It seems it might be more effective to make your concerns known earlier than that.

Re:They didn't spend R&D time or money

[sacherjj]

The answer is NOTHING is illegal with scanning a $20 bill. It only becomes illegal if you print it out withing 75% - 150% or real size, with no madification which would make it obviously not valid currency. This is a useless way of trying to control a crime by punishing those who don't perpetuate the crime the most.

Realistically, how is this going to stop counterfitting? They will download a copy of Photoshop 7 off of a warez site, get a serial and counterfit away. It is just a joke.

Re:$150,000 in R&D Dollars = !liability

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't copy protection... its little more than a way to say 'if they're doing it, they've already compromised our software, so its obvious that we have no liability in Sven's counterfeiting ring'

Seems like a good investment to me.

Re:What were they thinking?

[NanoGator]

"Hmm sounds just like software companies that are conned into spending boatloads of money on elaberate copy-protection schemes which are broken in days instead of hours."

I wouldn't call this 'copy protection' in the sense that you're describing it. Adobe's trying to keep their ass out of the fire. If Photoshop were suddenly used to do a great deal of counterfitting, Adobe can fire back and say "we made a good faith effort to let people know that it's illegal."

Frankly, I don't see how Adobe could have won this either way.

Re:I suppose reading the article is too much.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool, that sounds just like a trojaner is hidden in the program..

Its just plain stupid

[t_allardyce]

I feel sorry for the programmers that worked on Photoshop because i can tell that the decision to implement counterfeit prevention was a management one and if it was me i would be very pissed off that some idiot had demanded that i taint my software with a stupid mechanism that hasnt a chance in hell of working properly. What did they think they would achieve? would criminals suddenly give up because the latest version of photoshop wouldnt let them open money? im no expert but im almost certain that the system wouldnt prevent even one single counterfeiter. To me it says that Adobe management hold a very arrogent view on their products, (well actually ive thought that since Dimitry Sklyarov and this and i just hope that the negative impact it has on the programs performance and price is bloody minimal.

Re:They didn't spend R&D time or money

[sacherjj]

What's in it for Adobe is ticked off consumers who won't be upgrading to Photoshop CS. Sony Vegas now beats Premiere in editing speed and stability, while doing a lot of what Affer Effects was used for. Who wants to step up and twack Adobe again with the Photoshop killer? I know I'm not going past 7.0 for a while, just on principle.

Adobe didn't add this publically, they hid it. I think that is why most people are angry. "You're telling me that for $650, I got a product that doesn't work like it should?" Most post I have seen from people who need to edit with money are mad. They can't go back to the store and get anything other than an exchange. Add this to the on-line registration issues and CS is just a bad release.

Wrong

[Douglas Simmons]

Maybe if they didn't spend R&D time and money on useless features, their products would be more affordable.

A product's worth is not a function of its production cost. In a free market, a product or service's worth is the amount the last guy who bought it was willing to pony up.

Black box for currency detection -- what next?

[kobotronic]

So the "good corporate citizen" Adobe have inserted ANOTHER perfectly useless black box into the graphics production pipeline of its users.

They say it's not going to hurt performance, and I'd like to see this verified by comparing load times of large hi-res images (as used by graphics professionals every day) between previous photoshop versions and this new crippled version.

Even if such a test turns out to reveal whatever might arbitrarily be perceived as a 'reasonable' performance hit, it doesn't leave me overly inclined to upgrade (I am a licensed user of Photoshop 7.0.)

No matter how you bend it, such a black box is by any definition yet another a crippling feature, an abomination to productivity even if you never need to scan currency.

But what if you do? No law says you can't use currency texture for e.g. a finance related site. The mentioned two-week 'maybe' turnaround time on the written permission and dubious-quality sample set from the Bureau of Engraving is laughable for anyone in the graphics biz with deadlines measured in hours, not months.

While the black box spews a browser window [with a traceable referrer? someone post the URL please] and stops the load and does nothing more, you CAN evidently bypass the 'feature' without problem after this initial nuisance as described in the article. You just need to WORK a little more and your smooth graphics pipeline has suddenly become crippled and bent with a couple needless ninety-degree turns as bothersome as those in the Breezewood, PA I-70/I-78 interchange (but without the tacky motels).

So why is the black box even THERE? It's just ANOTHER performance retarding stopping block. Back in the day when Adobe first started bundling the annoying Digimarc watermark stuff with Photoshop, I was bristling over the substantial performance hit it had on everyday photoshop work. I DOWNGRADED to the previous version and stayed on that for several years.

Eventually the PCs increased in CPU muscle enough that it was no longer an 'issue' for me, and perhaps the digimarc stuff in the latter versions of photoshop was optimized, or whatever. All I'm saying is, THAT useless black box was there in the first place, so THIS is just another. Which one comes NEXT? Where does it END?

Will Photoshop, the good corporate patriot citizen, commission additional black boxes to detect things like:

• Drivers' licenses and passports
• All government-issued papers
• Corporate trademarks (with database of associated legal depts)
• Barcodes (cue:cat redux)
• Celebrities imagery of which subject to royalties
• Heads of state and top bureaucrats (to stem the fark.com floods of Dubya photoshops)

Gotta love feature creep. But no worry, soon as PCs clock 10 GHz, you will barely notice the extended load times.

Re:Consistent thinking anyone?

[grimarr]

But my point is that the people doing crime are the criminals. Not the guys who manufacture tools.

I agree with you completely. The problem is that the law enforcement agencies, politicians, and courts believe that it's a perfectly valid strategy to attack the people who make the tools instead of (or in addition to) the people who use them to break the law. It's often a result of laziness or greed, but it is happening with increasing frequency these days, and I don't see anyone in a position to fix it trying to do so.

The DMCA is just one case. Suits against firearms manufacturers, alcohol manufacturers, aircraft manufacturers and many others are another example. More and more laws are being passed to remove the need to prove that a bad act happened by making acts that often preceed that bad act illegal in their own right.

The latest example that comes to mind is this. The Virginia legislature is about to consider a bill that would make it illegal to have an open container of alcohol in the car while driving. It's already illegal to drive drunk. It's not illegal to be a passenger while drunk. So why can't the passengers drink while a sober guy drives without drinking? Because then the police/prosecutors would have to prove that the driver was drunk to convict him, and that's too much work. It's much easier for them to just prove that he could have had a drink whenever he wanted, so he must have done so.

So I can see why Adobe might want to protect themselves by adding this feature. I don't like it, but I understand their reasons. To prevent it in the future, we should fight the root causes, not the end effects.