Slashdot Mirror
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?"
It's actually just a test for the true roll-out, which will prevent the reproduction and distribution of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
what happens when the note design changes?
What I really want to be able to do is to incorporate this signature into my own images. It could be used to provide a modicum of image protection from the technophobes, or else to annoy people. I found a few details on how it works here. I particularly like a comment from one guy about how it blocks scanning of $20 bills...
:D
"You can still scan a $10 bill twice."
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Is this software/hardware reporting back to someone that you're trying to duplicate currency? I doubt it, so it's likely not spyware. The incentive they have is simply to help the government fight counterfeit currency. Do you want your goods to be purchased with fake money? I don't.
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
Hey, look! Over there! A terrorist!
What were you asking me again, you traitor?
Search on the usual suspect newsgroups and you'll find a "patch" that can easily be applied to Photoshop CS to turn the currency detection off.
Maybe this is another example of the kind of initiative that bureaucrats dream up all the time and usual get binned immediately, but are nowadays somehow seeing the light of day due to some "homeland security" paranoia. Like telling airline customers not to queue for the toilets in planes or whatever.
It has been public information for a long time that there have been currency detection in digital color copiers. When I worked at Xerox this was publicly acknowledged (~4 years ago).
The currency detection was used to imprint a watermark into the reproduction image. That watermark identified the copier model and serial number that made the photocopy. The result was that the secret service could track down photocopied currency to the exact machine it came from. This supposedly worked for US bills, but I don't know if it recognized other foreign bills.
All thats changed now is that some devices stop printing the currency and instead print out some informational junk in its place. HP apparently does this in its Windows drivers, while Xerox did its watermarking in firmware on the actual device.
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
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.
I cannot copy that benjamin
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
We seem to be crossing the barrier from capturing and prosecuting criminals to restraining the general populace in order to protect the status quo institution...
At what point does the government go from serving the wishes of the people to the people serving the wishes of the government?
Take a good and careful look.. this is erosion of freedom at work... Sure maybe it's small and relatively painless.. but then, that's why they call it erosion,
"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.
If software can detect bank notes in printer drivers, why can't vending machines do it reliably?
I wonder if more images will incorporate these anticounterfeiting circles? CD covers, web photos, and books could all incorporate this simple design.
What happens if someone puts the circle design on their webpage images? Does this prevent printing, copying, etc. web images?
Circle mania could get very interesting.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Thank you for your post. I've returned 6 printers and both PS and PSP so far. By some freak of nature, my newborn son has birthmarks arranged in the pattern shown in the PDF. Every time I've tried to work with his image the software wouldn't load it. Then when I finally resorted to MS Paint, the printers wouldn't print it!
I was able to defeat this "feature" by drawing another birthmark on my son...problem solved! Thank you slashdot for saving the day...again.
Effectively, there's now a standard symbol for "do not copy". It needs to be better publicized, but it's out there. Soon we'll see it on everything.
Suddenly, the expensive printer in your office starts printing every image (but not text) in fluorescent green. It has plenty of magenta toner, plain paper, a surge suppressor, etc. It's having the same problem with both Windows and BSD or Linux computers, so you know it's not a driver issue.
So, what do you do?
You call tech support to find out you need to do a firmware upgrade, remove the network card, turn the printer off & back on, while holding a button, turn it off, replace the network card, turn it back on, and calibrate it 3 times.
Have this same trouble ticket a few times and I bet they'll notify the RCMP, MI-6, FBI, or whatever it is in your country.
All because someone at your office was "playing" with a new logo design, that happens to include a scanned image of the "great pyramid" on the US dollar bill.
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!
Boy you are going to get the IP police on you about this one.
Downloading MP3's is NOT a federal crime, for very many reasons.
1) It pisses me off when people leave out the words "without distribution permission". I know why people do it, but the net result is it allows people to label an entire class of LEGAL activity as being shady. For example, absolutely nothing stops me from recording my wife singing, encoding it in the MP3 format, and sharing it. There are plenty of bands (insert rant about commercialized music and better alternatives) that have authorized distribution. MP3 != stolen
2) It's not a federal crime. It's a violated contract. These are civil court infractions, not federal violations.
3) The difference between a civil dispute and a federal crime is quite large. As in the difference between at most a fine and years of jail time.
The parent poster was absolutely right. People forget what a REAL crime it is and ruin their whole lives. You'd honestly be better off stealing a candy bar than forging a $5 to pay for it.
Never confuse volume with power.
Your child might actually be running afoul of the anti-Christ detection algorithms that were installed into software long before all this currency stuff. It looks for a specific pattern of 3 '6's on your child and should be helpful in alerting you to your child's status as the anti-Christ (along with the explained rash of deaths you must be experiencing). The quickest workaround is to change one of the 6s into an 8 with a sharpie.
Why don't you post a picture of little Damien. I bet he's a real cutie patooty.
yes because I can go and buy the paper I would need to even come close to making the feel of a dollar bill, but more importantly, what about for birthdays when I take 100 dollar bills then super impose my ass on the bill and give it to people in cards. I want to still keep doing that, the joke never gets old, the person sees an excellent 100$ bill pulls it fully out of the card and sees my ass with full fruit basket, it's beautiful.
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
The problem isn't that this is stopping people from printing images of currency, but that it is establishing the principle that it is ok for the government to require programmers to put crime detection / phone home features in their software.
Do you see the problem now?
The "right" being infringed here is very close to speech. The right to write/run software of your own choosing without having to ask the government if it is ok first.
You would consider it a big deal if the government required you to get their approval before publishing an article you had written, wouldn't you?
The phrase prior-restraint comes to mind.
Say it with me everyone: THE DMCA WAS SIGNED IN 1998 BY YOUR BOY BILL CLINTON.
Now YOU escuche y repita:
JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE DISLIKES GEORGE W. BUSH DOES NOT MEAN THAT BILL CLINTON IS "THEIR BOY".
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.