Slashdot Mirror
27 Central Banks Push Anti-Counterfeit Software
securitas writes "GlobeTechnology reports that the 27-member Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group is behind the anti-counterfeit software in Adobe Photoshop CS, Ulead PhotoImpact, Jasc Paint Shop Pro and others. Consortium members of the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group include the USA, Canada, Germany, Japan, Australia and many more. Law enforcement agencies and banknote-issuing authorities say that it is a response to the rapid growth of digital counterfeiting. The software is distributed free of charge to hardware and software manufacturers and is voluntary to use. But the European Union is drafting legislation to force manufacturers to include anti-counterfeit measures in all systems, scanners or printers sold in Europe. Counterfeiting and anti-counterfeiting with Adobe Photoshop and other products like inkjet printers have been the subject of recent discussion on Slashdot."
There are many anti-counterfeiting measures already implemented on paper money. (cotton-based(IIRC) paper, color-changing inks, watermarks, and metallic threads. Instead of changing US currency again, why not train cashiers and other handlers of money to utilize the features that are already in place?
- it's not really designed to. Sure, the big organised crime gangs will get around it with no problems at all. But it will stop the casual counterfeiter. This is what it is designed to do.
The problem of course is that _sometimes_ it gets in the way of legitimate uses of digital technology. This is an example of one idiot ruining it for everyone. Life's like that. I pay high car insurance premiums because other people are stupid/lazy/drunk/asleep, even though I'm not.
Yeah, it's annoying, but that's life. It would just be nice if the companies would be more up-front about it. Good on Adobe for coming clean; but they needn't have denied it in the first place!
-- Your mother uses Emacs.
It's a never ending game. As E. E. Smith said, what physical science can devise, physical science can analyse and reproduce. We just have to keep moving the bar higher than the counterfeiters can easily reach. If the typical US bank note is too easily copied by technology available to the home user, then it's time for the typical US bank note to be updated. Not for the technology to be crippled...
What is the point, if anyone really wants to conterfiet software, they'll find a copy of older versions around. It will work just as well. Heck, why not use paint, with some skill that could work. This won't deter those who truely want to counterfiet. Maybe it will save a few $100 a year from those who are lightly considering it, but mainly it will kunut people who want crystal clear images which the software determines to look like money. This hurts, not helpes IMO
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Honestly, I don't see why people would be too up in arms about this.
Constantly checking for counterfeits steals processing power that I should be able to use for things I want my PC to do.
The software is never going to be perfect, either. What recourse do I have if I'm designing something that looks enough like currency to trigger it, but actually has a legitimate purpose (e.g. a prop for a film)?
Finally, it's just another symptom of the nanny-state mentality that is pervading modern society. I shouldn't have automated systems watching over my every move to make sure I'm not doing anything unfavourable.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
The heart of the problem is that the legal tender is easily replicable. Coins are harder to reproduce and the payoff is much lower than paper money. Paper money, because it must be printed is susceptible to counterfeiting.
The counterfeiters who are truly making a dent in the money supply don't use Photoshop, though. For the most part, they have real drum printers and very sophisticated printing plates. They are printing money onto real fiber paper. They certainly aren't printing bills out on their Epson Deskjet onto White Shark recycled office paper.
At the extremely low level of low-cost counterfeiting which these software controls attempt to prevent, there simply isn't enough money being produced to worry about. The guy in his basement printing maybe a hundred thousand dollars a day out of his inkjet printer can only use so much of that before getting red flagged by some clerk who notices that his $100 bill isn't quite right (usually because the paper is different).
These software controls don't do anything to attack the real problem of counterfeiters who are doing the real damage printing millions of dollars which are indistinguishable from real money.
I have been pwned because my
This is a genuine question : how is it a bad thing ?
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For me, that means two things
1) if you want to do some parody bill, well, you'll still can, you'll just have to make sure that even from far it looks like parody.
2) 15 years old kids that get drunk for the first time and think that it is a good idea to make some cheap bill to get that coke free won't go 15 years in jail.
This thing just means that if you want to make false money, you'll have to dig a little bit. And if you do, it's clear that you wanted to counterfeit, and you'll go to jail. On the other hand, some kid won't be able to pool a cheap prank that can get him in serious troubles. Good chances are that he'll think "hey, if i've got to go to www.falsemoney.ze, maybe the police/secret service/whatever will notice, so maybe I shouldn't".
Remember, this thing is not, has never been, and will never be to deter mafias from counterfeiting. It's just to make it hard enough for Joe Schmoe that he has to think about his actions, and then decide that it would be stupid to risk 15 years for a prank.
Does anybody else think it's a BAD idea to try to legislate software features? Am I the only one who thinks that could cause a lot of problems? - Eric
MakePassword.com Mp3 Blog
Just wait until they start mandating what DRM, anti-counterfeiting, etc. software must be included in your operating system. Help Debian or your favorite Free Software OS get a foothold. Click the link in my .sig for more. Click my homepage for too much information.
Lindows Steals Copyrighted Art and Promotes Porn
For example, with a printer, something along the lines of a microcontroller (running embedded linux) which connects to the print head, print head drive circuits and paper drive circuits. The existing printer is used only toprovide a mechanical chassis.
It might even make financial sense. Buy that entry level printer, which uses similar mechanical components to that high end printer, and end up with an 'open source' solution that exceeds the capabilities of the high end printer but costs less. Alternatively, don't throw out that obsolete printer but reuse the chassis and convert it into a state-of-the-art printer.
Didn't anyone tell you, the whole innocent until proven guilty ideal has disappeared.
We are all subversives until proven otherwise...
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
They already do. However, there are many, many issues of US currency out there. Part of the problem is that all US currency is legal tender. If you can conterfeit a 1980 note, that's as good as a 2004. Could you tell a counterfeit 1980 $5 or $10 note with a line of people at your register? Would you sit there dutifully checking every bill under a UV light to make sure the paper is good? Nah, you just hope to god it's good and leave it to the bank to sort out, who most of the time don't check anything but the pH of $20 or larger notes anyway. You'll get more scrutiny with $50s and $100s, but hardly ever, if ever, $1-10 notes. Also, what of vending machines (read also: Slot Machines)? If you think that Vegas and Atlantic City haven't sent a few lobbyists out on this one, think again.
Finally, it's just another symptom of the nanny-state mentality that is pervading modern society.
... or how Calvinist Geneva was practically a police state ... or how Sparta was literally a police state ... or how most of Roman history is characterized by subordination of the individual to the state ... for that matter, consider that most of human history is characterized by the institution of slavery.
The nanny-state mentality (nice phrase) isn't peculiar to modern society -- it's common throughout history.
Check out, for example, the history of sumptuary laws
On the balance, the nanny state has been the historical norm; widespread respect for individual initiative is a relatively recent phenomenon.
-kgj
-kgj
Because devices (hardware and software) that I buy and pay for should be working for me, not the government. My computer's CPU cycles should not be utilized against my will to ensure that I am complying with the law. Let the Secret Service buy computers to do their work, and let me use my computers to do my work.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
The problem is that once these copy protection controls are installed everyone will want to use them. Markus Kuhn of Cambridge University has discovered one of the patterns used for detection of bank notes, known as the EURion Constellation. Sure, it's not that big of a deal when only bank notes have the constellation, but expect to see the constellation start showing up in the darndest places.
Soon everyone and their brother will start printing the Constellation onto whatever they feel needs "copy protection." You'll see it printed on photographs and forms and all kinds of junk. Regular people will have their right to make copies and the ability to use their own equipment usurped by others abusing a mechanism that was only supposed to inconvenience counterfeiters.
If you ban a technology, only criminals will use it. If you ban a popular technology, you turn most of the population into criminals.
Yes, this is the main problem. It seems to be generally agreed that this won't stop anyone who's serious, but when you're using image/pattern recognition to prevent scanning and printing, it's not a big leap to putting copyright enforcement patterns in magazines, books, etc etc. And as much as I can sympathize with wanting to protect your copyright, there are perfectly legitimate and legal reasons for scanning something out of your magazine/book/etc. The question is how long it will be before this kind of protection is implemented, and if we'll be told when it happens. Sorry for sounding paranoid, but it seems warranted.
If you get nervous, just remember that there are a few billion other people who don't really give a damn.
If legal copies of Photoshop don't work, criminals will only have pirated copies. Wow, big cultural shift there. Think of the awesome deterrent power of that law. Think of all those would-be counterfeiters who will say, "I'll steal from people I don't know, but I would never steal from Adobe."
I often think that only skilled programmers should be allowed to make laws. Those who are making laws now are so illogical that they would never have run-time bugs because they would never get anything to compile.
If you spend several years writing complex programs and debugging them, you develop respect for your own imperfect logic, and for the need to check your work, 90 or 900 times if needed. You develop respect for logic itself, and for the operation of your brain.
Many people become lawmakers because they are somewhat popular, and got elected, only that. For some of them, if clicking on File/Save causes the program to exit, that's okay. It's better not to spend too much time thinking.