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Currency Detection Discovered in More Products
netbsd_fan writes "BUGTRAQ is reporting that anti-counterfeiting spyware is being found in more and more products. What is also interesting is that these products block fair uses of currency images which do not break the law. What incentive do printer manufacturers have to treat their customers like criminals? Is this a precursor to DRM in scanners, CD drives, and output devices?"
To: BugTraq
4 13 ,87~11271~1882929,00.html)
Subject: HP printers and currency anti-copying measures
Date: Jan 17 2004 5:10PM
Author: Richard M. Smith
Message-ID:
Hi,
Last week, the Associated Press reported that Adobe has incorporated
anti-copying technology in their Photoshop CS software which prevents users
from opening image files of U.S. and European currency. Here's the article:
Adobe admits to currency blocker
http://tinyurl.com/2xnno
(http://www.sanmateocountytimes.com/Stories/0,1
I did some investigating on my own computer and discovered that HP has also
been shipping currency anti-copying software in their printer drives since
at least the summer of 2002. I have an HP 130 photo printer and found the
string "http://www.rulesforuse.org" embedded in the driver.
According to a few newsgroup messages posted in 2002 and 2003, folks are
seeing this URL printed out when they attempt to print images of certain
types of bills. An HP printer with this anti-copying technology only prints
out an inch of a currency image before aborting the print job.
Here is a list of HP printers which appear to have this anti-copy technology
embedded in their Windows printer drivers:
HP 130
HP 230
HP 7150
HP 7345
HP 7350
HP 7550
I suspect the list of affected HP printers is much longer.
I located these printer drivers simply by searching all files in my Windows
and Program Files directories for the string "rulesforuse". If other folks
run this same experiment, please let me know of other programs which appear
to contain currency anti-copy technology.
There are some unanswered questions raised by this quiet effort by U.S. and
European governments to turn home computers into anti-counterfeiting "cops":
1. Besides graphic programs and printer drivers, what
other kinds of software is this currency anti-copy
technology being embedded in?
2. Are companies being required to include currency
anti-copying technology in their products? If not,
what incentives are being offered to companies to
include the technology on a voluntary basis?
3. Will future versions of this technology, "phone home"
to the rulesforuse.org Web site with details about
a violation of the currency copying rules? It would
be very easy to include an email address, name of the
image file, software version number, etc. embedded in
a URL to the rulesforuse.org when a violation has been
detected.
Richard M. Smith
http://www.ComputerBytesMan.com
'Go for the eyes, Boo, go for the eyes, aaarrrrrrrr!' -- Minsc
Some people use their photo printers to make near duplicate dollar bills to put in vending machines and are then surprised when the secret service shows up at their door.
Counterfeiting (in any denomination) is a serious crime. One that is punishable by serving jail time in a federal penitentiary.
Actually, I've thought about this. I don't have complete information about the Eurion pattern, but if it's scalable to larger sizes, it could be interesting.
I was thinking of T-shirts with this design on them so that photographs of you (think driver's license, passport) can't be photocopied.
A little rubber stamp with this pattern on it so that you can copy-proof any document you want (do you want the IRS photocopying your 1040? Nah!)
Anyway, not terribly handy I admit, but a great way to wrench up the works.
"Is this a precursor to DRM in scanners, CD drives, and output devices?"
Nope. It's a pre-emptive step to avoid government mandated DRM in scanners, CD drives, and output devices. If wide-spread counterfitting were to occur because one of these devices was capable of pulling it off, the manufacturer would be able to say "we took reasonable steps to avoid this." If they didn't do that, then the gov't would no doubt cook up its own solution to the problem. I am not a huge fan of this, I would rather these companies stay out of the legal cross-fire.
The United States is going to protect its currency very heavily. Don't provoke them by trying to circumvent this.
Yes, but you fail to understand the purpose of this anti-copying feature. It isn't to make it impossible for determined criminals to copy currency, it's to make it difficult enough that only determined criminals will try.
The court system would be clogged with newbs and 'regular folk' who copied a few $20 and/or their 10 year old son did it.
By implementing a layer of 'prohibition' like this they filter those folks out, which means there will be more resources available to hammer hard on the people who need the hammering (the people conterfeiting on a large scale). Which is a good thing, unless you're some sort of fringe character who thinks counterfeiting is kewl.
---
This has been going on for a long time. In fact, I had a Kodak color copier back in 1995 that did the same thing.
No reason to lie.
As a former photoengraver and member of the IPEU, now the GCIU, I can assure you that at one time it was illegal to make ANY kind of reproduction of American currency. The rules have now been relaxed a bit, but I personally would never do it. It's just too difficult to prove you weren't trying to counterfeit. My father worked with a fellow who claimed he was just "seeing if he could do it" after someone found a plate he left sitting in the water tank in the etching room overnight. He ended up with a long vacation to Leavenworth, Kansas. This is not a joke, and the Feds have no sense of humor about it at all.
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
Will printers be locked to Windows drivers, so that they only work with Windows? This might be justified as an "anti-counterfeiting" measure. Otherwise, there's an "open source hole" in the protection strategy.
Will generic printer drivers stop working? What about standalone printer spooling devices? Less-common operating systems?
Looking up the powers of the Secret Service I found this:
What are the rules for the printing, publishing and illustrations of U.S. currency?
The Counterfeit Detection Act of 1992, Public Law 102-550, in Section 411 of Title 31 of the Code of Federal Regulations, permits color illustrations of U.S. currency provided:
1. the illustration is of a size less than three-fourths or more than one and one-half, in linear dimension, of each part of the item illustrated;
2. the illustration is one-sided; and
3. all negatives, plates, positives, digitized storage medium, graphic files, magnetic medium, optical storage devices, and any other thing used in the making of the illustration that contain an image of the illustration or any part thereof are destroyed and/or deleted or erased after their final use.
Title 18, United States Code, Section 504 permits black and white reproductions of currency and other obligations, provided such reproductions meet the size requirement. See Know Your Money for more information.
So basically, even if you did it once, you'd have to destroy your printer and delete any storage medium used to make it.
Secret Service wins, good game!
I had this discussion over Christmas. A friend of mine's wife has been a bank teller for several years. They get lots of training on this sort of thing.
They're not supposed to take bills like the ones you describe -- with the ends ripped off. That scam is decades old. Of course, some most certainly do, but they aren't supposed to. There are a few other things that tip them off, too. I can't remember a lot of them now, but if they're busy a lot of it just slides by.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
In all this conversation were missing an important fact. That is, that there is a serious problem with casual counterfeitting of currency. In the U.S., most currency actually passed is now produced on color printers and copiers. While such copies are easy to identify, they are usually passed in situations where they will not receive much scrutiny. That is, in low light situations where the cashier is in a hurry, like in a bar or at a concert. Usually the cashiers don't care that much, since they aren't the one who's out the money when a fake comes in -- except at places like electronics stores that have more exposure and so train their cashiers better. By the time the counterfeit is found, the doer is long gone and so the business ends up just getting screwed. They don't have any recourse. Now, the counterfeitting laws and the whole enforcement system is predicated upon the idea that fakes can't be produced without substantial upfront effort. The print-on-demand nature of this type of counterfeitting makes prosecution tricky. With offset counterfeits, there are multiple people involved. There are resources to get, cameras, plate burners, presses, paper, ink, and all these attract attention. Computer-produced fakes aren't like that. There's no evidence except perhaps what forensic analysis can turn up on the hard drive. The presence of counterfeits detracts from the widespread acceptance of currency. Since currency is the only practical anonymous means of payment, those of us who value our privacy would do well to support measures that keep currency practical. Now, the anticopying measures in the printers are, as far as anyone has been able to tell, a voluntary measure on the part of the manufacturers. Good for them. It is one of only two good choke points for the problem, the other being to have cashiers check in detail for things like watermarks. Is it a form of DRM? Not really, since it is wholly unrelated to copyright law, and since there is no digital distribution of the "content" in the first place. What are the implications for open source? None. Open source systems could include such measures and may do so in the fullness of time. Just because it can be disabled by the knowledgeable makes no difference. When the day comes when 90% of the desktops have an open source operating system and desktop suite, most of the user base will have no idea how to make such changes.