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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.
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
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."
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.
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
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?
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
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'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).