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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.
Maybe they should just skip the product and go directly to printing the money.
"From Adobe's standpoint, all we're concerned about really is that it doesn't have a performance impact on customers, that it's stable and doesn't cause crashes and that it's not going to produce false positives -- that it's going to tell someone that a picture of someone's grandmother is a $20 bill," Connor said.
That's good, because there's nothing like having a top-of-the-line imaging program tell you that your grandmother looks like Andrew Jackson. Yikes!
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Let's all forget about counterfeiting, and concentrate on Photoshop's real purpose: pasting celebrities' heads on nude bodies.
great, another protection mechanism that's easily sidestepped by the real crooks but manages to irritate legitimate users
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 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.
Silly. There are thousands of possible reasons why someone might want to work with graphical images of banknotes other than counterfeiting. Blocking all those legal uses to prevent one illegal use is a violation of our rights.
This just in, the GIMP is providing an optional anti-counterfeiting plugin, for people who want it. Seems fair.
That's awesome...let me fire up my dot matrix printer and I'll be in the money in no time! Woo!
The anti-salmon
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.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
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.
My Stack Overflow user
The fact that Adobe's products aren't affordable is yet another anti-counterfeiting feature. Users who can afford Photoshop have more money (and thus less need to counterfeit) than the general population.
The next version promises to be even less affordable, to the degree that no matter how rich you are, you'll have to counterfeit money just to buy it--thus ensuring that you don't use it to make the counterfeits!
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?
[FromTheMorning]
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."
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.
Never assume that a device, law, or drug does exactly what it's supposed to do, and nothing else.
How comfortable would you be using a "counterfeit deterrence system" that you had no idea how it works. Makes you wonder if it also has the capability to "phone home" when someone tries to make anything remotely resembling a banknote, or whether there are back doors.
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?
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
but it's not like you can go to Best Buy, pick up a scanner on sale, and start counterfeiting money.
I want to BestBuy last week, and sure enough, right there next to those little photograph printers, was an illegal currency printer. The side of the box said,:
HP Illegal Currency Printer (USB)
Plug and Play technology
System Requirements:
Pentium II 200 MHz or better
128 MBytes Ram
Windows 98/NT/2000/XP
Note: Does not work with Adobe Photoshop CS
Don't forget HP Bank Note Paper and Ink Cartridges (HP-ICP-701).
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
The anti-counterfeiting part of the application was not developed by Adobe.
...
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.
This feature was asked for by the US government. Adobe is probably being reimbursed by the goverment and in return, Adobe promises to include this feature. In otherwords, it would probably make the product less expensive to produce.
The Television Wiki
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
Development effort for protection scheme: $150,000
Cost in added crypo components (100,000 units): $1.2 Million
Look on CEO's face when some kid in Sweden breaks the copy protection 12 hours before the product is officially released: Priceless
There are some things money can't buy, for everything else there are gullable shareholders.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Software (and to a lesser extent, hardware) prices are based on percieved value. When Microsoft charges $400 for Office, do you really believe that R&D cost them $350 for every copy? The upfront cost was in the tens of millions, but the cost to print the CD, box and manual is right around $5. Does that mean that we should be paying $10 for office? After all, a 50% profit margin is pretty good, right?
Adobe doesn't charge $650 for PS-CS because their costs are high. They charge that much because that's what the market will bear. That's what it seems to be worth.
-- Hamster
I see where you're coming from, but in my experience, development doesn't work like that. Nobody just drops some mystery code into their product and releases it (can you imagine this code breaking some other feature and Adobe tells their customers "well, the Fed. told us this code would work...sorry 'bout that"?). Features like this are typically worked into design specs and engineering specs. It also needs to be integrated into their codebase (even if they were just a bunch of precompiled methods) -- it needs to interface with their software somehow, no? Code like this also has to be tested, which can be a pretty major undertaking. Furthermore, for every change that's made to any part of the code, features like this (and all others) are usually tested in regression.
While Adobe may not have spent time developing the code itself, I'm fairly certain that this code adds to the bottom line of development costs...which also adds to the bottom line of the product cost to the end user (unless they tack that expenditure onto some other product).
In the end, we all pay for a "feature" that we don't want...even though we do pay for it, we'll never notice (unless we're counterfitters, in which case, we'll either use a different product, or find a way to easily circumvent the "feature"). It's downright lame and it's not their job to enforce the law. Besides, what's illegal about scanning in a $20 bill? I can think of 10 legitimate reasons to do just that right now.
What's next, anti kiddie-porn protection? At least the code will actually prevent a law from being broken (unless you're taking baby pictures and your kids like to be nude...it happens).
-Turkey
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.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
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.
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.
The answer to this wonderful question is knowable through the simple process of "Ancedotal Induction."
At some point during the development of the mentioned version of the application, someone in product management induced a design constraint along the lines of "don't enable counterfeiters." None of the other product managment types cared because "we'll get that for free from the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group."
Product managmeent gave this new design constraint to a behind-schedule-implementation-manager. This poor guy said "sure", because, well... they're paid to agree with product managment. Especially since it was something "we'll get for free from the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group."
So the behind-schedule-implementation-manager went to the engineering team and said "we need to add counterfeit deterrence, give me the schedule impact, but I've already decided it shouldn't take _any_ time at all, because we'll get it for free from the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group."
The engineers decided immediately that actual counterfeit deterrence would require software slightly more capable than the average bartender, and that there was no good place in the image processing design to hook in something like that anyway. However, since it wasn't their code that'd take the blame when it didn't work... who cares. They told the implementation manager that it'd add as many hours to the schedule as they were currently behind and went back to work.
Eventually, the component (let's be realistic: an old version of a dll, and the wrong typelib, and a corrupted Word document claiming to be the "design document and manual) shows up in an engineer's inbox. He hacks it in on a branch to one part of the image import processing logic, fires up the build, and doesn't see it crash. It gets merged back to the main line immediately.
The last it was ever heard from before shipping was when someone from the test team called some friends over to "hey, look at this"--whereupon he showed them that you could get really good quality images of currency... but only if you used the "raw" settings from the twain image capture page.
Next stop