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Mandatory Banknote Detection Code?
metamatic writes "The European Union is planning to introduce legislation to make it mandatory for software developers to add black-box banknote detection code to their graphics software.How will this apply to open source software? Is it time to get writing to your Euro-MP?"
They're giving the software away free, so it sounds like it should be easy enough to add to OSS projects, and it helps to curb priacy.
Althouth I think forcing it to be included in Hardware only and allowing software to remain voluntary is probably more prudent.
It's interesting that now the EU wants to push problems with more
and more counterfeiting money appearing on the market to graphics
software makers...
How do they think, that this will improve the situation? Look at
what TODAY's Gimp, Photoshop, and others can do... All I would need
to do is stick with a current version and not upgrade, if I really
wanted to counterfeit money on my own. And if you would integrate
this into the printers, then I'll just print the banknote in two or
three passes (always just print another part of the banknote so
that the printer will never get to see the whole thing in one go).
Why not integrate this into the FUTURE banknotes (they already have RFIDs in there, don't they? All it would need to take would be to issue unique codes to EACH banknote so that they could verify the identity of the banknote there)
next time on CSI: man rendered invisible to the magic zoom-in photo software by wearing suit made of dollar bills
-You're wasting your time. Alfador only likes me.
Link here
got sig?
The article mentions Photoshop as if its anti-counterfeiting measures have been successful. Have they fixed the previously reported problems?
I'm not an OSS developer, but I would think they would ignore this. What's next? McDonald's pays software companies enough money to include their trademark detection? So you can't scan/recreate/modify/distribute their likiness?
I know they're probably attempting to stop (appearently) rampant counterfitting... but where will it end? I once scanned a dollar and sent it to someone on IRC as a joke (they said, someone DCC me some money). There has to be a better way. Like I said, isn't this really just admitting defeat?
FLR
Ok ill just go buy a OLD scanner, and find a older version of photoshop.
Kinda locking the door after the horse has bolted dont we think people?
oh and FP ! \o/
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
As far as in the USA, most scanners will print something over the scanned money. Generally its "Void" in stripes over the entire scan. Copiers are worse. There are several Xerox models that will literally lock up until a service tech fixes it if American money is inserted.
I see little in the need to copy a bill. We all have issues with forgeries and counterfitting ruining the value of the dollar/euro. Why not?
Sigs are nice guns
They (the counterfeiters) will just switch to another product, such as Macromedia Fireworks, GIMP, or Inkscape. This will only hurt the companies creating the products. Also, on another point, will there be GIMP EU edition, and GIMP Everyone Else Edition? How will this work?
got sig?
Just because your software is open-source doesn't make it suddenly immune to the laws of your country.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
...will software developers be required to keep up with new note faces? If old software blocks all note faces as of 2004, will developers face penalties for not updating their software in 2008 when the currency is redesigned?
I don't like the idea of being legally required to update old software. Will this happen?
Does anyone know of a source for T-shirts with this yellow five circle pattern? Any photo with you in it would be impossible to digitally edit with the new software.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Yes - it's been in the media over here in Europe. In Germany apparently a good number of forgeries were even re-distributed through ATMs of some banks, who - for the sake of saving a couple of Euros - reloaded the ATM cartridges themselves, instead of carting of the money to the German National Bank who would check the banknotes and fill the ATM cartridges with absolutely authentic banknotes. The issue behind this is that normal merchant banks and people on the street do not know EVERY security detail of the Euro banknotes. Seven details have been published, the others are being kept secret by the national banks so that forgers will not get to hear about them.
In an Open Source app, it can stop someone who don't know C from doing something, but if you know C you can simply remove the added code...
This smacks of the RIAA and the DMCA here in the US. Attempting to use inappropriate technology to solve what is largely a problem in another domain.
What's the real solution?
Eliminate cash, of course. If you want an equivalent, use the stored-value card equivalent of Europe's GSM cellular telephone cards. You can add value to little untraceable "cash cards," and merchants can swipe them and subtract value. If they're lost, they're lost, just like cash. If you want protection from theft, you use a credit or debit card.
Cash is old technology--hundreds of years. Why we insist on sticking with it is beyond me. Counterfeiters will not be using the software that is limited in this way, plain and simple; they'll use other software, or no software at all. Some might say this will deter the casual counterfeiter--but at the same time, it will cause tremendous headaches to those who actually have to deal with scanned images of currency: advertising, the media, etc.
From the article:
The copies are often good enough to fool vending machines. By using a fake 20 note to purchase a 2 rail fare, the criminal can take away 18 in genuine change.
Follow this logic: While we can't make vending machines clever enough to tell the difference between real dollars and fake ones, we can make your computer smart enough to not let you do anything with money.
This'll work.....
Makes me wonder why us geeks try over here. Every time something comes along we wish to support the bastards in Brussels decide that screwing it up with more totally useless laws is a great idea.
Makes me wonder if Microsoft is slipping money into pockets over here to try and kill open source.
--- [Insert intresting Sig here]
This is useless. Banknotes do, and should, have security markers on them that cannot be produced by normal software tools anyway (I am thinking of markers that have tactile feel, holograms, etc). Thus, you need advanced techniques to forge these: and anyone capable of such advanced techniques is going to be able to work around any of these standard software embedded countermeasures.
All these countermeasures are doing is addressing joe average who uses a scanner, photoshop and a printer to make poor forgeries: exactly the type of forgeries that are picked up easily.
Further: I'd like to hear more detailed assessment of forgery rates, nature of how forgeries are constructed and so on, to determine whether the cost of all of this is really justified.
How will this black-box banknote detection code work with GPL'ed software? If it's going to be added to a GPL project it can't be proprietary anymore.
As an American I find this idea abhorent. While against the counterfeiting of banknotes, I still feel that this government dictum is wrong. I really dislike the idea of government dictating which features are to be added to software. What's next: government dictating anti-piracy code to be added? Even though this may curb counterfeit bills, it also curbs personal liberty; I feel that this practice should be discontinued immediately.
The term for faking currency is "forgery" with fake currency being "counterfeit". "Piracy" has nothing to do with it.
what detection pattern are they going to use? if i scan it in 4 parts, how the hell is the soft or the scan to know that is a note? and what if dettects something that isn't a note?
Until someone files a patent for currency-detection software in the EU.
Having the article point out that the anti-counterfitting measure their software scans for is various circles reminded me of The Stainless Steel Rat. In one story he discovers that the "impossible to counterfeit" money they have relies on a series of creases in the notes, spacing based on square roots of prime numbers.
The actual impact of this effort on counterfeiting will be minimal anyway. People can always get hold of the version prior to counterfeit detection being introduced.
Where's the Kaboom?
There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
I can just pull the code out of whatever software I'm using and recompile. You know somebody probably overpaid an __EXPERT__ commitee to sit around a table and think this up. Excuse me while I laugh heartily, thank heavens we have so many __EXPERT__ commitees passing legislation on our behalf!
I think I read somewhere that a large percentage of the fake money is actually created by everyday people. This is an effort to stop that. If they think it's something more they're kidding themselves.
For one reason we dont want to be tracked and restricted.
A 2nd reason is ( at least in theory ) cash is backed by something and are 'something'..., bits on a card are not either...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Obviously adding any black-box code to a system with open source won't accomplish anything. I remeber hacking the OptimalJ by Compuware. It is a big application written in Java (so you can assume it to be Open Source - for instance use this), but it had some black-box module that has checked licenses and operating system. We were at the time OptimalJ licensee (so NO unlawful activity when copyright is considered) but wanted to run OptimalJ on FreeBSD (was 2xfaster than on Linux and 4xfaster than on Windows). Point was that this black-box module checked the operating system and made impossible for the program to start if it was not linux or windows. So we simply did circumvent the whole black-box module.
In my personal opinion if you want such regulations to have any effect both OpenSource and posession, use and selling of compilers/decompilers should be controlled by the state the same way as heavy arms/munitions. In particular it should be banned to own/use/sell/produce compilation tools, exept in the case you are a professional company having obtained a suitable license.
You can defy gravity... for a short time
if photoshop has to run each pic through a detection algorithim wouldn't that slow things down a bit. not that a slightly slower photoshop matters to most people, but i batch process thousands of frames for animations. maybe it wouldn't be a big slow down for one scan or import but it would for the amount that i process. and it doesn't really seem like this is going to stop anything.
Add it to the code as mandated but also add a tool to remove it or document on how to remove it from the source.
And unlike the movies, I bet they are doing this in secret. Other things they could add to software is the printer to have small dots indicating when the money was print (based on the bios or os of the system), or maybe something to identify the system it was printed (like something unique like the mac address of the nic or something equally unique).
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
At least with open-source, you'll be able to disable the @!#$)@*!@#$ detection when the thing decides your new graphic work is actually money and your boss starts screaming at you...
Dear European Union,
I am an open source software developer. Could you please send me samples of all EU notes, so that I can include image protection in my software. 10-20 copies of each should be enough to complete the work needed.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
I just know some idiot will latch on to this and use it as an excuse why OSS is bad/evil/wrong.
See? We can tell Adobe to lock down their software to stop counterfeiting, and it happens. But not those OSS people. Having the source means you can change the source. It makes counterfeiting possible, promotes communism, and makes baby Jesus cry.
Unfortunately, it's not the software that's the problem - it's the law thinking it can mandate things like this that's the problem. But you watch - OSS is going to take a beating for this anyhow.
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Just by even saying this it prooves without doubt that the EU has absolutely no idea about the issues involved. Have they even asked experts? do they have a technical panel? Even im qualified to say that this will not work and is a stupid in-the-clouds idea, why don't they atleast make a start and hire me?! ill work for next to nothing and i could sort out all their stupid issues on DRM, bank-note detection, censorship and patent laws, im not biased to any corporation im not even biased towards open-source (much). Can't they take a look at slashdot now and then? Or are they all corrupt already.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I don't understand how it is possible to be 100% sure that people will keep that black box into a piece of software distributed as source code. The black box is likely to be a binary-only library, but people can modify the surrounding code not to call the library.
Will it be a criminal offence to compile out the black box in graphics programs used within the EU? I bet it will, as soon as legislators realize that open source SW exists.
Will open source developers living outside the EU add the black box to their SW? I bet that not everybody will, unless the US adopt a similar law.
I saw this in the article and found it Here
nifty info
Rather then changing the virtual world, I think its time for the affected countries to 'upgrade' their banknote manufacturing processes.
I am going to try scanning a coin, printing it, then using it on a vending machine. Somehow MAYBE it won't work... Hmm... Maybe try on a laser printer...
Beta Sucks
int detectEvilMoneyCounterfeiting()
// Let the EU figure out how to protect their
// own money themselves
;
{
return 0
}
...will only inconvenience legitimate users.
It may also stop some teenagers from printing up obvious fakes and landing themselves years in prison. Of course, this wouldn't be so huge an issue if ambitious politicians didn't insist on throwing the book at them.
Criminals will go "oh, that's cute" and switch to something else, implement a workaround, or whatever it takes to keep business running.
The rest of us will have to deal with software self-destructing, hardware seizing up, open source projects becoming illegal, etc. More hassle in our lives just so politicians can make headlines.
Fuck it.
Euro notes have RF Tags in them.
Why is it we must resort to trying to push back the tide of capable graphics applications, when we really should just make money harder to counterfit? Why not have money with two different types of paper? Or with embedded RFID tags? Or with some form of cheezy hologram? Or a multi-level print system? What about bumpy, raised sections?
The fact of the matter is, there are many ways to make money more robust, and there are many excellent detection schemes on the market today. That US dollar bill marker is a good example. But like that US dollar bill marker, nobody uses them. It ads another thing to do. It's easier to just push this all onto the people making graphics applications, and assume the worst. Of course this will shut down most open source software packages and any pictures of money in commercials, but that's a small price to pay for piece of mind, right?
The ______ Agenda
Photoshop and other graphic suites already have this in place, without the legal requirement to do so. You can bet that there won't be much resistance from them because they are already in compliance with this. Frankly, as someone who would never have to scan in money, I am quite indifferent about it, especially since I have been handed counterfeit cash twice (that I know) by a food vendor at my school. I am not saying that I want this law to pass anywhere, it's just that I think there are bigger battles to be won.
That's stupid - there's no such thing as black box code. If a computer can read it, a person can use a computer to read it. There's no such thing as black box code. That's the "soft" part of software.
In order to have "black box" information of any kind (code or no), you have to have some physical device that does not let that information out. A "black box" that can't be opened without destroying the information.
So they're going to make a law that requires "black box code", but there is no such thing. Brilliant.
1. Take open source graphics software
2. Remove banknote detection module
3. Profit!
The problem is proving (2) as long as I keep the modified software to myself. Oops - of course I meant-- as long as the counterfeiter keeps the modified software to himself. Come on, criminals break laws. A law more or less isn't going to make that much of a difference.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
All of the bills use a simple pattern of 5 small circles in a vaguely cross-shaped pattern (see the article). Any new bill could use this pattern too, so you would not have to update your software.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Back when I was in college, we ripped off Columbia House. LOL. College kids are not quiet about what they are thinking about doing, epsecially if they have had a few beers. I could not imagine campuses being the hub of counterfeiting.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
*laughs*
OK. The last time this came up, it consumed about twelve straight hours of hackery. You can go ahead and play with some of the black boxed code using the demo version of Paint Shop Pro (or the latest Photoshops). Let me tell you: This has nothing to do with the circles. I was actually quite saddened by this fact, as I was planning to print up a "secure t-shirt" that would be unphotographable and unprintable by modern image manipulators. (It'd be a great excuse to talk at Black Hat wearing a T-Shirt *laughs*).
Alas, such adventures were not to be had. Experimenting with copy/paste between an unprotected app and the demo PSP, it quickly became clear that while some old copiers might indeed trigger on the inter-circle distances, counterfeiters now had a vastly more difficult system to fight. What there seems to be is some sort of size and position invariant image fingerprint function, probably wavelet based, that receives the full image after every large scale image transform, executes a fingerprint matching vs. a confidence value, and returns true or false depending on what the confidence threshold is set to. It's not perfect -- Stirmark does seem to cause the algorithm to occasionally stumble, though not consistently (see this gallery for details) -- but it's very good work nonetheless.
Certainly, it does not appear possible to manipulate the watermarking system to create new and unique images that appear, computationally, to still be money. That's a very good thing. And while it's somewhat problematic to have code refusing to obey its controller, the integrity of the financial system really is an important thing. Remember the privacy case for cash -- if paper money becomes something we all distrust, what exactly are we left with? The fault with the RFID approach is that it forces us to carry a reader to validate funds. If we cannot self-validate, we cannot trust (notably, the biggest weakness with the metal strip approach is that we cannot quickly notice that the metal strip has been removed -- the wealth is actually thus represented not by the bill but by an invisible strip of iron and plastic!).
I do not think that image manipulation software is the right place to put this code, specifically because it's too easy to write an image editor from scratch (what are you going to do, ban compilers?). Scanners and printers are however sufficiently single sourced that they're far superior places to trust that anti-counterfeiting logic will be in place. But then, that's just IMHO.
--Dan
when they can steal it from under your nose, look at Ken Lay, tyco and the rest of those criminals, who needs to fake cash when every day is payday !
corporate corruption makes counterfitting look like a kids game and probably costs the economies a lot more than fake cash will ever do, just wait till someone spends their entire life saving for a retirement then just take it, they dont get a second chance
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Similar to gun control measures, this only does one thing - takes a perfectly legal thing out of the hands of law-abiding people.
In this case, circumventing the technology (PARTICULARLY IF IT'S IN AN OSS PROJECT!) will prove to be fairly trivial to criminal counterfeiters. I myself can think of several ways that would take all of 5 minutes, although I won't share them here because I don't want the black helicopters landing on my front lawn.
In the meantime, some 37-year-old woman, with no criminal intent, trying to scan money to use in some car dealer's newspaper ad (DEALS DEALS! CASH BACK!) is going to go crazy. Likewise for the Art 101 student trying to make a collage out of GWB's face and the US $100. Likewise for the vending machine engineer trying to scan bills to teach the reader how to recognize them. And so on...
-JT
easy... we use coins instead, harder to counterfeit.
/Tobias
For bigger sums we use an electronic transfer.
The only use of big bill money is almost always shady anyway.
Warning: This sig contains a small bug. ==> *
If people become convinced that it is ***IMPOSSIBLE*** to counterfeit money, they will stop being suspicious, forget to triple check all the features and counterfeiters will have a field day...
money-wise, such as banknotes with RFID serial numbers (making anonymous transactions impossible even for cash, plus creating a huge data trail even for innocuous daily purchases, and finally giving robbers the opportunity to single out the most promising victim before aiming their gun or swinging the baseball bat), which seems to scare even the RFID industry itself, and
otherwise, especially with respect to the creation of dangerous additional intellectual property rights (undue powers for copyright holders, and software/business method patents).
This database should give everyone a good idea whom to elect, and whom to vote out of office ASAP.
The fact that so few people participate in European elections only adds to the weight of your votes.
A reasonably composed European Parliament (which can now veto most of the proposals by Commission and Council) is our best chance for (more) sensible lawmaking in the future.
+5, Insightful.
Of course, nobody would ever think to remove that code!!!
I think that ultimately, a lot of software companies would push for this because they would want to see free software made illegal for one reason or another. The problem is that even in closed source proprietary black box software, someone who wants to counterfeit money will figure out, or hire someone to figure out, how to disable that code. And no matter how obfuscated the code is made, it is ALWAYS possible to do something like that. It's only a matter of time and money, and to the counterfeiters, the money is practically free anyway.
Technological measures designed to enforce the law will never work. While they might keep the honest people honest, those people are, by definition, honest anyway; but the dishonest will find a way around it. For example, by using old graphics software, or by modifying current software, be it free/open or proprietary.
I say just make the bills much harder to counterfeit, and do it in such a way that it's easy to detect the fake ones.
Free software and software facilitating "unauthorized access" to digital media (think decss) is beginning to pose such a threat to established software and media giants that they'll certainly fight back this way.
The owls are not what they seem
What is it about the EU that causes you to confuse it with the USA?
Create an army of autonomous solar powered hyper-Roombas.
Have them with scamper about with a video grabber and the black box algorithm.
Set them loose to harvest money.
Seriously, it seems to me that the black box library would just be
as easily used as a dependable proof reader for money image duplicators,
and a much more easily targeted point of failure.
US woman shops with fake $1m bill
Yes.
Make programming tools like compilers controlled in the sense that certain substances are controlled these days: get caught owning, using or selling them and you're going to spend the next 5-10 years in prison.
Then bring in controlled black-box computer hardware that will only run software that has been produced with a properly licensed compiler.
It will happen. Media giants, software giants and certain DoJ attorney generals would love such control too much.
The owls are not what they seem
The right to read
Therefore, if this goes through, it will be illegal to write software which manipulates graphic images if you are giving away your source code.
Seriously... does anyone think that this idea wasn't put forth by someone with an agenda?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Shsh... don't you give 'em politicians new ideas!
"Overheard from imaginary Members 1 to 4 of Some Parliament:"
Just use the same style notes as the Aussies!!!
Come on!! Yeah, lets just make our digital cameras identify Terrorist and contact the MI-5 while we are at it!
You never hear about Aussie currency being forged.
Why? Well, it is worthless, for starters, but, secondly:
It is:
(a) A special plastic that all Aussies can attest to having an annoying tackyness about it..
(b) has a see through, holographic window in it forge THAT!
(c) is so farking detailed that no scanner/printer will be able to copy it.
It is complete B/S that any country still uses paper currency.
My sincerest apologies. I failed to point out that my tests on a wide range of European banknotes as well. I'm not the only one doing this kind of work; see this presentation for details.
--Dan
Making a scanner isn't that hard either. Not that i could make one but i couldn't make a graphical editor either
Ewww. I failed to point out that I performed my tests on Euro notes, is what I meant to say. Anyway, I actually started on the Euro bills, then moved to greenbacks because I could get JPEGs of them easier.
--Dan
Ha. Right. PHP compiles, and can easily manipulate imagery as well (through GD, Imagemagick, etc.) Sure, go ahead and license web programming. Lets see that survive 1st amendment review :-)
--Dan
Legitimate uses of graphics software to manipulate currency images? What if I'm doing some research on the different types of currency or the history of currency? Do I need to get some kinda of congressional approval? Heck, what about simple history? The history of the 20 dollar bill? I have an image of a dollar bill and would like to resize it to fit my article?
This does not seem to be the right solution to me. Too many false-positives. I think somebody has already mentioned plastic bank notes.
Besides will it stop there? I mean, so my gfx software doesn't work with currency images. How do I know it isn't "phoning home" alerting some obscure agency that I just tried to open a currency image? This is quite ridiculous.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
Right on the money (terrible pun, i know!)
But seriously, you are correct in this attitude. Completely correct.
You're right. Making a scanner is actually not atrociously difficult (photodiodes 'n light, basically), but making a printer of any quality is. Printers will always be the critical line of defense.
--Dan
1) Get source code for the Gimp.
/* No bank notes allowed */
2) Find line in the Gimp that looks like:
if( isBankNote( img ) ) {
return false;
}
3) Comment:
/*if( isBankNote( img ) ) {
return false;
}*/
4) Recompile.
With OSS, just make the "home" of the project in a friendly or neutral country. This was done with several security projects when the US was trying to enforce crypto export laws.
Besides, you don't need PHP, Java or any other programming language to publish your ideas on the web.
The owls are not what they seem
Next some bright spark will patent a way to stop webpages and other documents from being printed on such printers...
;).
;).
Try using a faded out image of currency as a background watermark on some of your printed documents
The US notes are the same size, similar colours for different denominations. That's dumb. Should change that one fine day...
How much damage have counterfeiters really done? How much will these countermeasures cost in time and resources for the benefit they actually will accrue? Despite what the crooks at the top think, most people aren't amoral greedy looting bastards like them. So it's the mass counterfeiters you worry about, and this stuff just won't stop them.
I really wonder if it's worth it economically (rather than politically etc).
BTW the US Gov has done more to ruin the value of the dollar than any counterfeiter
Sure, not by US Supreme Court, but certainly by US Federal Court:
http://laws.lp.findlaw.com/2nd/009185.html
===
Communication does not lose constitutional protection as "speech" simply because it is expressed in the language of computer code. Mathematical formulae and musical scores are written in "code," i.e., symbolic notations not comprehensible to the uninitiated, and yet both are covered by the First Amendment. If someone chose to write a novel entirely in computer object code by using strings of 1's and 0's for each letter of each word, the resulting work would be no different for constitutional purposes than if it had been written in English. The "object code" version would be incomprehensible to readers outside the programming community (and tedious to read even for most within the community), but it would be no more incomprehensible than a work written in Sanskrit for those unversed in that language. The undisputed evidence reveals that even pure object code can be, and often is, read and understood by experienced programmers. And source code (in any of its various levels of complexity) can be read by many more. See Universal I, 111 F. Supp. 2d at 326. Ultimately, however, the ease with which a work is comprehended is irrelevant to the constitutional inquiry. If computer code is distinguishable from conventional speech for First Amendment purposes, it is not because it is written in an obscure language. See Junger v. Daley, 209 F.3d 481, 484 (6th Cir. 2000).
===
And I do believe the Norwegian Supreme Court ruled similarly in favor of DVD-Jon.
While we're on the subject, it's supremely ironic that you're telling me that you don't need a programming language to publish ideas on the web, via a web form dependent upon Perl! Not to put too fine a point on it, but you required a dynamic web programming language to tell me that you didn't require a dynamic web programming language. I do believe the appropriate response is, "Oops."
--Dan
Color copiers usually scan the bill in a single pass and this somehow foils the CCD into not seeing the intended color and registering a paler shade of the background.
This is used in some other notes too (ours, Brazilian Real, for example), not only in the US.
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
There's no "Oops".
1st Amendment deals with government censoring political speech. It doesn't say that you have the right to code an interactive blog. There's nothing stopping you from typing your political agenda in index.html file for all the world to see. Hence, you're not being censored.
The owls are not what they seem
You realize the first amendment specifically protects assembly too, right? Banning the technological means of assembling for discussion would get laughed out of court.
The more we discuss, the weaker your case gets, as the more impossible this discussion becomes without dynamic code. It's that simple.
Wow, this should be foolproof... until someone blacks out one of the circles, scans the money, and replaces the fifth circle in the last pass; which can easily be done in an earlier version of software.
another protection scheme that, for those actually committing a crime, does pose a significant enough effort to deter; but still may manage to be very inconvenient to people using the software legitimately.
How does making GPLed image manipulation software like the GIMP illegal not limit your freedom? If the library is win32 and macos only, how will any linux software include it, not to mention GPL issues?
I don't think it's realistic to say that if you're "banned" from writing your own blog software you're deprived of the 1st Amendment right to assemble. First of all, you can still go outside and get together with your friends. Secondly, if the government got in constitutional trouble with this they'd just point out that there's plenty of properly licensed blog-software already available (if there weren't they'd just release such software). Problem solved.
The more we discuss, the weaker your case gets You saying so doesn't make it so.
I challenge your claim that dynamic code is a pre-requisite for this discussion. Let's say I'd have my website with its index.html file. You'd read it and reply on your own page. I'd read it and reply on my page and so on. By the way, that's how science still works - via written journals.
The owls are not what they seem
I find this paranoia about images of bills strange. In some countries it's illegal to have any image of a bill, no matter how small... I for one have had legitimate use for a digital image of a (Euro) bill. I was making a CD-ROM presentation with animations, speech, text and such, and used an animated 100(?) Euro bill to symbolize the transfer of money in a business context. I didn't scan the bill, though, but copied it from a EU web site. And while IANAL, the person I was working for/with is a lawyer (it was a law firm).
No way! Which architecture? Did they have 8086 in 1789? .... hmm, hold on, that was 1978.
The responsibility is with the wrong object. The device which accepts money has the responsibility of detecting fakes.
It's ludicrous to assign the responsibility of detecting fakes to all devices which process images, because that's essentially any Turing complete system. This means that all computing is illegal unless it can detect money. Since it's impossible to build computers which detect money without computers which cannot detect money, all computing is therefore effectively illegal.
If it's impossible to build cash machines which reject counterfeits, then cash is ill-specified and needs to be redesigned.
If it's impossible to build cash machines which reject counterfeits, how on earth is it supposed to be possible to build scanners which reject real cash anyway? Isn't it the same problem?
mt
Mandating specifications and requirements for software that open source is simple not capable of doing will be one of the future attacks against open source.
"GPL software is bad, because someone could ALWAYS modify it to allow them to commit 'illegal' activities"
"Trust us, DRM'd super-secure (insert program name) here, because you KNOW where on your side"
Obviously, this is not meant for the public at large. This is meant for policy makers, who like the idea of control.
Quite simply, I don't see a way out of this. If this measure passes, the GIMP, and many other Open-Source image manipulation programs will be ILLEGAL in Europe.
Hell, at some point in the near future, they might even make it a crime to use older versions.
And if the EU makes such a regulation law, you can look to the U.S. to follow suite.
Combine this with palladium, which can put such restrictions on 'illegal' software in hardware, and then ban all legacy hardware.
Voila, death of open source.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
This law, along with many other laws regarding computer software will never be effective for the simple reason that forcing people to put certain things in their code is just another form of government censorship.
When governing groups try to force people who are perfectly within the law to do certain things they will automatically get resistance, and rightfully so. Forcing people to put this sort of censorship into their computer programs will be utterly pointless because there will always be other companies out there or small groups that will release a version that doesn't and then the entire law is void.
The only way to stop this from working is to do what they have already been doing: changing the money to make it more difficult to counterfeit. The latest colorations and paper materials on US money will help somewhat and if other countries can try to keep up, there will be even less of a problem.
All in all, they're just going about it the wrong way and pushing around the wrong people.
If you can't say something nice, make sure you have something heavy to throw.
You don't want a t-shirt. You want to tatoo the pattern on your forehead. That'll be something.
In order to win your point, you'd have to successfully argue that the flexible nature of web programming has not directly enabled previously scarce or unknown forms or modalities of speech. Given the massive political will that discussion blogs are expressing at the present time -- from FreeRepublic to Daily Kos -- that argument is not likely to succeed.
You're right -- science still works via written journals. If I had to write to you via a journal, I would not write to you, and more importantly, literally could not write this specific message to you. Ergo, speech suppressed via infrastructure.
--Dan
WTF are you smoking? If gimp is made illegal, you are free to use other graphics program. It doesn't limit your freedom in the same way that preventing you from driving a Formula 1 car in city streets doesn't.
And if gimp were made illegal, it will be only due to OSS zealots who don't want to compromise one bit. There is no reason why the government would not be willing to create non-GPL'd versions of the library for any and all OSes.
All a counterfeiter has to do is get hold of a copy of an older version of graphics software that doesn't have the money-detection scheme. No fancy hacking or cracking is required.
This law is like building a safe with three-foot thick steel walls to "secure" your valuables, while leaving a big hole in the side that even a fat man can crawl through.
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
Although the /. post says that the banknote detection software is "black-box", I see nothing to that effect in the Observer article. I wonder if in fact the software is closed source. If it isn't, then it isn't a problem for FLOSS, leaving aside details of license compatibility.
...we must unite to boycott this protection! Help us: refuse receiving the money!
Really, software is just a bunch of bytes on your HD. Change those bytes and you've got different software.
Much like cracked games that are actually modified (ah, the good ol' days). The PC gaming industry learned long ago that going against pirates is a losing battle.
I mean, DUH. How hard is it to change software for it to think that some code isn't there? To modify it so that it doesn't execute the 'bad' part of the conditional expression? I've done this for fun with shareware using a low-level debugger at runtime (one that lets you modify registers and see the assembly code as it's given to the CPU).
Hacking software is easier than anything. And once you've done it, you make a patch. I mean really, if they rely on this for counterfeit protection, they're making counterfeiting easier than ever.
duh duh duh duh. It's just like how DVD's CSS was sold to the movie industry as a secure technology. Obviously the developers who created it didn't give a rats ass.
Moderators should have to take a reading comprehension test.
More likely: Voila, death of policy makers. Seriously, the geeks are the ones who know how to make all the bombs and the guns.
Making a decent color printer could be very hard. Replacing its firmware and/or its compute hardware should be pretty easy.
Again, we see people trying to use backward technology, unfit for the task, and using law to mandate its effectiveness. Banknotes were introduced in the 7th century. It's time for banks to get off their asses and try developing new forms of cash. People take for granted that a banknote is the only way non-coin cash can be, but just like other technologies such as the horse-and-cart and the CD it has a finite lifespan.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
I've been in the photocopier business for 23 years. Seems with each new generation of full color copiers, they have to put some sort of counterfit device into them. The latest is two fold. There is a "black box" device that detects the color of green and some other attributes and will cause the machine to lock up, displaying a 1-800 number to call. Then someone from the manufacturer, along with your friendly treasurey agent drops by to find out what you were copying. I heard this from a support engineer that a teacher was copying some things for a class, and the background of her original was close enough to cause it to lock up. The 2nd line of defense is that on any full color copier, there is a row of tiny light yellow microdots printed in the border area, which has the date of manufacturer, serial number and date of the copy. This way, if something sneaks by the black box, it can be traced back to who sold it. The last thing, is that the resolution isn't good enough to pick up the microprinting around the portrait, not to mention the security thread, or the color shifting ink. But, take one of these counterfits into a busy nightclub, fast food place, or any other business where they are as busy as a three ring circus, and it's no wonder they get passed. I've been a reserve with the sheriff's office for 15 years, and you should see some of the pathetic attempts at forgery. The funniest ones are where they cut the corners off of 20's and paste them onto the corners of a one dollar bill!
Is copy proctection protected by copy protection, i.e. DMCA?
I remember sometime in the early 90's watching a documentary on PBS or KQED or such, where the topic was money and dealing with counterfeiters.
I remember them pointing out that in Europe (which part, I cannot remember...) at the end of the business day, most or all major stores, shops, and other businesses are required to remit ALL their cash to a local bank or some sort of repository.
All the cash is loaded into special machines which electronically are synched and begin scanning for counterfeits. If two bills are duplicate in ID number, the source (pick up location) is correlated. In certain shops, where video surveillance devices are used, an actual passer of the bill might be gleaned, or even identified.
We have no such thing in the US, as I suppose. However, I wonder about the metal strip in the bills. I really want to know if anyone has tested it for signature properties, such as low-level self-identification. Maybe this is being measured in teh fast food restaurants, such as a Burger King I ate at in The Great Mall in Milpitas, CA, and at other places, such as a Jack in the Box near the Pruneyard in Campbell, CA.
The problem with countefeiters, to me, is not so much that they undermine "trust" (since maybe some 60% of US currency is shipped overseas to lube, stabilize or otherwise influence foreign markets and make pliant some foreign leaders), but that they further justify the excuses the government/s posit for dispensing with (getting rid of) paper (anonymous) cash all together.
We already see the gradual or complete disappearance of federal assistance vouchers, such as food stamps and help to WIC (Women, Infants and Children) recipients, and thanks to counterfeits, we may soon find our electronic purchases being video or biometrically recorded, even if we don't know about it. How? Pass a bill or hand over your credit (govt) card and it goes into a reader, capapble of identifying real-time or at least recording for later correlation, your DNA markers or material. I guess purchasing with Latex gloves on hand or using Purel prior to handing over the card might violate some future federal act.
What I'd also like to know is if anyone has done any test to find out if the metal strip in paper bills is designed to act as a "homing beacon" when pooled with other bills that are stolen from banks. Meaning, instead of using exploding dye packs, is it the case that palletized or box-sized bills in shrinkwrap act as a self-amplifying antenna? In certain metro areas, where antennae on the side of buildings can act as interrogators when triggered by a teller, the police could home in on the robbers from a safe distance and pounce them--if they can catch them before the interrogator loses the cells or bills.
Of course, it could be that RFID tags could be inserted between bills, but if the robbers fan the bills for just the pile they're stealing (if they think they have the time, or if they carry in their own portable metal detectors or demagnetizer wands), they could possibly elude being tracked.
Any ideas I've covered in this piece of writing which may be patentable and which currently are NOT in patent process are hereby cast into the public domain, CopyLeft, Creative Commons, and/or other mechanisms of public (non-government regulated) handling, so as to prevent some private firm from doing so and cornering the market for an obvious idea.
David Syes
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Can't Copy Me Tshirt
Except, of course, when run over by a steam roller. DS
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Actually, you can drive that car as long as it meets any appropriate safety standards required of all cars.
Its besides the point really though. Software is just a set of instructions, really just an advanced extension of one person telling another person how to make their computer do something. Its not the government's place to dictate how someone can use their own computer as long as they are not doing anything to harm others or society.
Even if the currency detection system is made GPL-compatible, it will be trivially easy to disable it.
Even closed source software is easy to crack - look at all the commercial software distributed illicity that has been modified to bypass various checks for things like dongles and activations.
Given that the biggest problems with counterfiet money comes from people who are usually pretty knowledgeable, I see no reason why these people cannot figure out or find someone to figure out how to disable these checks.
The average joe who wants to copy a bill can even just use an old copy of Photoshop to do it.
This law is absurd and will do about nothing but could do plenty of damage to free software.
Q.E.D.
Photoshop CS already does this.
"We already see the gradual or complete disappearance of federal assistance vouchers, such as food stamps and help to WIC" I meant to say "paper vouchers"/"paper food stamps", since now many recipients in various states are using debit-card-like vouchers. Regards, David Syes
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Oh really?
I don't see the word "political" anywhere in that sentence...
A quick Google turns up eurionize , a perl script that adds the anti-copying constellation of circles to any Postscript file. (Haven't tried it out yet). I'm sure someone could quickly print out some of those iron-on sheets for T-shirts.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Same trick as with counterfit dollars. Who says you have to use them in the place where they are produced? Many countries accept US and EU notes, that is an opportunity for the counterfieters.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
How much time would it take an average merchandizing business to check each and every serial number of each and every bill that comes their way?
That is why the treasury department regularly checks each bill to ensure that it is not counterfeit.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Obviously more the piece is little and is more likely not to get caught. If someone pays me 500 i'll probably spend 5 minutes checking them, if i own a night club and someone gives me 10 i'm most likely not to see neither if there is Duffy Duck face on it. Not to talk about coins, but probably they would be more expensive to produce than the possible gain. This choice to implement a software protection is probably the smartest thing to do, as well as a strong pubblicitary campaign on how important is to check money because there are many fake bankonote. The thing is, if someone doesn't check the money i give then i can give him whatever is similar to euro. Color differences in euro's are already present, take some fresh 5 euro, and some other that passed in many hands. It will be much lighter, and may have ducktape on it. These bankonotes gets accepted. Is easier to stop the duplication than check for duplicates, because it relay on how much people is attentive.
And if Bush and the US Congress go along with the European Convention on Cybercrime's latest proposed treaty (mentioned before on slashdot here) then it will automatically become a punishable offense to use GIMP, etc in the US even if we don't pass a law like this.
If you can't say something nice, make sure you have something heavy to throw.
GD, Imagemagick, etc
All of which would also be declared illegal, of course...
It's official. Most of you are morons.
European elections are in one week. Research the positions and voting records of your currently elected officials, and see what vague promises the contenders have on offer, and make your vote count.
Gets down off soapbox.
If the Commission wants to create a directive requiring all software to have anti-counterfeiting detection code in it, then they have to provide all F/OSS developers with the complete specifications for all the watermarking technologies on the bills. I want to see all the frequencies of the moire patterns, circle spacing, color channel patterns, paper transparency, reflectivity of the holograms. Everything. Maybe even some working sample code. Provided without any restrictions so it can be included in every GNU, GPL, BSD, and other licensing scheme.
Of course, since this directive is being sponsored by a corporation who holds the copyrights on several of the technologies and designs, they will probably require a mandatory licensing scheme for a chunk of self-decrypting black box code. Include it or go to prison.
Climbs back on soap box.
Yeah, time to get out and vote. One week left to ask another round of questions of my MEPs. Go do the same!
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
There are a number of problems with adding such code to printers:
* It is difficult to update. All counterfeiters have to do is find *one* image that can get past the blocking code. Futhermore, there is a *huge* set of printers out there that have no such blocking.
* Printers have limited memory and CPU capabilities. I really think that HP will not be thrilled with blowing a bunch of each on doing "currency detection" on every chunk of every page for each country that latches onto this.
* Printers have only the ability to "block". "Blocking" penalties for a detection of counterfeiting is the *easiest* variety of protection, since people just poke at their images until they print. Photoshop or other can "phone home". Some folks might think ahead enough to have a fully-disconnected computer, but as network connectivity grows...and it only takes one "phone home" with a detected serial number of a page of bills that are showing up with bogus numbers to nail someone.
* Printers were never designed to be highly secure embedded devices (for example, a number have easily-replaced firmware slots). It's a good bet that printer manufacturers don't go to a lot of trouble to hide diagnostic data. Sure, no random counterfeiter might be able to crack such a system -- but (a) there's lots of money involved to hire such a geek, and (b) there are major "geek points" involved in figuring out how to break such a system, and legitimate reasons for doing so. Remember the Xbox -- yes, it was cracked so that people could put Linux on it, but it opens things up to piracy. What if people want to improve image quality, add their own rendering engines (because it's not like they can easily build modern printers in their basement)? When someone distributes detailed instructions for how to disable such protection, it won't take a brilliant counterfeiter to beat the thing.
I really think that this is more a case of "we need to do something new with our currency". Currency was designed in a day and age when it was hard to accurately reproduce detailed images on a piece of paper. It was a very good design for that environment. I think that if we had to come up with a new system, we'd have something wildly different today.
You know what *could* make a major improvement?
Smart cards replacing "stupid magnetic strip" credit cards.
Currently, the reason that you can't use credit cards everywhere is because the credit card companies rake in money on each card, and it imposes overhead that not every retailer wants to pay (in vendor fees and per-charge costs).
Smart cards (with *associated readers*) make credit card fraud much more difficult, and thus reduce credit card company costs, and ultimately reduce prices to retailers.
This will help produce smart cards be more commonly used.
Of course, the downside is the big credit card issue -- more easy tracking of money flow, which is a bit Orwellian. Technically, it's possible to build a system that doesn't track fund flows (and still has the hard-to-counterfeit benefits), even if your credit card vendor is malicious, but there is probably little public interest in such a property. Plus, given the commercial value of people's credit card records (and pressure from law enforcement to monitor them) I don't think that it will happen.
May we never see th
In fact, as far as I'm concerned, Chip and PIN is a potential nightmare.
Instead of mugging victims finding themselves relieved of their wallets and purses I can forsee muggers demanding PINs too, so that they can use the cards that they've stolen.
Right now, if a card is fraudulently used and the signature doesn't match that of the cardholder then the bill is footed by the credit card company, even if the card hasn't been reported stolen. Sure, the costs are passed onto the consumer (well, to those consumers that don't clear their card balances at least) but there's no chance of you suddenly being presented with a four- or five-figure debt for the spending that a card fraudster has run up on you card.
But, if you find yourself in a situation where you give an assailant your PIN, even if it's to avoid physical harm, then you're responsible for all spending they clock up before your card is eventually cancelled.
Frankly, as a credit card holder, this scenario frightens me, even though the chance of it actually happening to me is next to nothing.
Of course, the card issuers are being very quiet about all this, which is no great surprise.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Actually, you can drive that car as long as it meets any appropriate safety standards required of all cars.
And you can use gimp as long as it meets any appropriate standards required of all image-editing programs.
Its not the government's place to dictate how someone can use their own computer as long as they are not doing anything to harm others or society.
Exactly. In this case the government wants to say that using an image-editing program without proper safeguards harms society.
This law is absurd and will do about nothing but could do plenty of damage to free software.
Agreed. But that doesn't have any effect on your "personal liberty." The proposed law is absurd because it can easily and safely be worked around, but saying it limits your free speech or rights to freedom is even more absurd.
and, pray tell, what other functions would these be?
you give our government way too much credit. these are the same guys, who after 5 years and 6 billion dollars, couldn't even upgrade the IRS's computers. remember?
bite my glorious golden ass.
I can't understand, what would prevent a counterfaiter write a completely new graphics software for himself. It should take less time than engrave a metal plate with all these tiny details...
Perhaps, a making illegal to write graphics software?
There you are, staring at me again.
This legislation is silly. The price of printer ink these days CLEARLY makes it uneconomical to print fake $100 bills. It'd cost you more for the ink than you would generate in counterfeit currency!
I do not think that image manipulation software is the right place to put this code, specifically because it's too easy to write an image editor from scratch (what are you going to do, ban compilers?).
Why would you write your own when you can simply NOOP the call to the black-box method that recognizes the bank note image? Warez pirates have been doing it for years with copy protection calls, do they really think that counterfeiters won't be able to figure it out?
Well, with large chunks of printer control living in the driver, you can at least do everything from Photoshop and do it inside the printer driver. Of course, this makes it rather problematic to print from Linux or any other uncontrolled OS.
Now that you make me think about it, printers don't store a full image in RAM -- they stream their actions from the upstream driver. To be barriers to printing, they'd have to have _alot_ more memory, or receive their data in some semi-low resolution full page view...ack.
But smart cards aren't cash. Dude, credit and debit cards have won for retailer microtransactions. I have literally hundreds of $5 purchases with my credit card in the past year. Whatever the cost is, it's low enough now.
But I can't give five bucks to my roommate with a credit card, a smart card, or anything else -- except maybe a check. Cash is critical for large portions of society. Are you aware that there are large neighborhoods with no banks, just check cashing services?
--Dan
Using RFID's in currency will thwart counterfeiting only if everyone uses RFID readers. Hardly likely, unless your proposing that use of currency without a reader should be illegal.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
In case it has escape notice, most countries have all kinds of laws about what you can and cannot do in relation to their currency? Except for a few (con)artists passing off currency reproductions as art, why would anyone care if your hardware won't make an exact dupe of a banknote?
Of course, it isn't going to wipe out counterfeiting. But, why make it any easier than necessary? Arguments that someone could use an old copy of Gimp or Photoshop are irrelevant, It's a pbvious reasonable expectation that, overtime, the number of folks using old software will decrease.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Of course, this makes it rather problematic to print from Linux or any other uncontrolled OS.
;-)
Or Windows. Unless you think Palladium will ever be an effective system?
or receive their data in some semi-low resolution full page view
It's a pretty good bet that it's easy to hack even binary-only drivers to feed garbage as a preview.
But I can't give five bucks to my roommate with a credit card, a smart card, or anything else -- except maybe a check.
Currently, the reason for this is because vendor fees for credit cards are so high. Paypay, for instance, lets you transfer funds to said roommate.
This is caused by:
* Fraud: massively reduced with smartcards.
* Processing costs: Massively reduced with smartcards (less human interaction necessary, fraud detection and resolution reduced, trusted local logs of transactions may be kept rather than sending out CC bills, etc)
* Until now, widespread data network access was rare and expensive -- the CC network evolved when many vendors had to make a phone call (well, with a modem) to authorize each number. This is no longer the case, especially with wireless Ethernet and digital cell phones. Hell, your cell phone can act as a smart card/smart card reader these days.
May we never see th
I've been there. I was mugged a few years ago, and my debit cards were taken. The muggers then demanded my PIN number.
So, I gave then a false number, and hoped to get away. Alas, one guy went off with the card, and I was push off the path to an underpass, pretty much out of sight of everywhere. I'll add that I was 25m from one University building, and 50m from the other, at this point.
Guy returns, I get a set of bruises, and then I give them the real PIN.
I'll further note that this was not an uncommon tactic, as the police were often heard to recommend getting the cash limit on the cards reduced, to minimise the loss in such an occasion.
Oh, if if you're mugged, they have taken your cell phone, so forget about that.
If we want meaningful moderation labels, can't we get back to the old system, where all positive mods gave karma points. Is it really that bad if somebody gets his +2 bonus by being funny? Or maybe we could add a checkbox to the moderation form "credit this moderation to the poster's" karma, so that the moderator can decide whether he only wants to moderate that particular post, or whether he also wants to reward the poster with some karma.
Such a checkbox may also help against cheap karma whoring.
Since by definition the source can't be closed.
:/
It really sucks when dumb-assed gov't officials behave like everyone is out to make a buck and everyone keeps their code a secret.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
Looking at the EU's premises, it looks like blame could just as easily be placed with the machines that deal with money and not with software. Why not require that counterfeit detection be built into vending machines, ATMs, etc.?
Why not get rid of the whole mess of bills and move to total electronic currency?
You can't counterfiet a form of money which has no physical form. So long as all of the banks and other such institutions are sufficiently hardened,
Thanks, GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
A guy I worked with a few years ago used to tell a story about calling another store in the same chain and asking if he could order something over the phone.
After the sales assistant took his order, name, address, etc, the guy explained that he didn't have a credit card so would it be okay for him to fax over a couple of fifties?
The sales assistant didn't *immediately* say no.
OK, they want software to stop working when it detects money? Good. Let's all start inserting The EURion Constellation [1] everywhere we can, on our websites, on our t-shirts, on our cars and literally everywhere. Then, when people start noticing that they cannot print their God damned holiday photos because there is some jerk with some freaking dots on his t-shirt on them, maybe they will stop using software inluding this stupid black-box banknote detection code. We can do it, people.
[1] It's a Google link, I don't want to link directly to eurion.pdf to avoid slashdotting the server.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
You don't understand the 1st amendment.
The government can't say "But there's an existing working method to put forth this speech, so you don't need that method we don't like." They have to prove that the specific method of speech they would like to control is obscene or presents a clear and present danger. There is no way you can tell me that PHP code is obscene (Perl might be a different matter...) and the way clear and present danger has been interpreted requires a near instant danger.
Your point that there are other ways to implement the speech does not mean government can regulate this particular speech.
---
Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
or the webpage, which has the results of more tests (all the ones out of Checkmark which I could get to work).
When I have time and can find some foreign banknotes, I will try them, but all the tests take about 4 days to run. The Checkmark tests are slow (since they are in Matlab), and for every test I have to try at least ~10 images in a binary search so as to find the changeover point. The strongly detected regions test takes the most time, since I test about 2,000 images.
Steven Murdoch.
web: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/sjm217/
If you want the Eurocrats to go paranoid, remind them that making Open Source software test for the banknote pattern GIVES AWAY THE PATTERN, and gives away code that tests for it. That means that it's easy for higher-tech Bad Guys to print just the right patterns. Sure, it cuts down on some of the lower-tech bad guys running up money on a Xerography machine, but counterfeiting has always had the reputation of being a crime for geeky specialists, not dumb thugs.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
This could amount to prior restraint on artists like JSG Boggs who produce parody's of national currency .
In any event, it will only inconvenience law abiding citizens since forgers will have no qualms about importing illegal software.
[i]What I'd also like to know is if anyone has done any test to find out if the metal strip in paper bills is designed to act as a "homing beacon" when pooled with other bills that are stolen from banks.[/i]
Note to self... Create a tinfoil lined wallet to go with the tinfoil hat.
Rod Taylor
There was this idea of having a panic-pin for each card that will work as well as the normal pin, but which triggers a silent alarm when used, marks transcation as fraud or something like that.
Cool idea, i don't know why it never got implemented
Yes.. The EU parlament does it again.. Im glad Norway is not a member of EU. Altough that doesnt help a lot, those politics just seem to follow.. Vote no for eu :)
Actually, secure colour printers would be great.
All I would need to do is type my credit card details into Photoshop and I could print as many (valid) Euro notes as I had funds available. Merchants could accept them with confidence since it's impossible to print notes without Adobe's permission.
You could even insert your own overlays and create your own denominations as long as they didn't screw up the watermark, "Why sure the 23 Euro note has a picture of Goatse on it..."
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Not to mention, a nice way to watermark your own digital photos to stop certain people fucking with them. Although it will really only screw Euro users who can't be bothered to download GIMP instead of using Photoslop. :-)
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
If you think giving 5 or 6 billion dollars to your friend's company, and having nothing to show for it at the end of the project, and still getting re-elected is a sign of incompetence, you have a pretty strange idea of what competence means in politics. ;-)
As often happens when interesting cases go before courts in the British Commonwealth, Geoffrey Robertson was the defence counsel, and told the story of the trial in his memoirs. By any literal reading of the law, Boggs was indeed guilty as sin. However, after some handwaving from the defence team designed mainly to show the jury that Boggs' art had gained some repute and fell into artistic traditions, the jury ignored the letter of the law, came down on the side of common sense and found him not guilty.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Yep, you're right. After all, we're talking about the same or related people (cia) who some 26 times tried to kill Castro, yet failed every time since the 50's. They blew up Zu En Lai's passenger plane, killing some 16 Indians/Indonesians trying to kill the Chinese Premier back circa 1953, only to see the US govt hailed him as a friend of the US. Fortunately for him, a last-minute summit changed his plans and he skipped that doomed plane. The hardware (bomb) found turned out to be sophisticated enough to have only come from the US, considering Russia was not a likely suspect for the bombing.
Yep, when the WANT to follow something for a while, they get it. Nope, not even, unless they use predators to bomb cars in the desert or assail civil rights leaders when adulterous photos don't even destroy the marked man's marriage.
As for FBI and Boneland Scexurity...hmm, I guess I am getting the tap opened up on my ass, since I hear ALL US electronics route thru the UK, where the privacy laws permit US domestic and foreign) intel agencies to circumvent US privacy laws...
Is that true, anyone?
David Syes
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
<sigh>... No they don't! They have a metal strip, but nothing remotely as complex as an RFID tag, the tinfoil hat crowd's suspicions notwithstanding...
The term for faking currency is "forgery" with fake currency being "counterfeit". "Piracy" has nothing to do with it.
I suggest we take the doublespeak to the extreme ourselves and just use the word terrorism for every possible crime. Payola->terrorism, driving over the speed limit->terrorism, jaywalking->terrorism, ad nauseam.
Apparently if they are still in your pocket when you iron your clothes, they shrivel up into a little unrecognizable ball.
By the way, the newest US $20 and $50 have the Eurion constellation on the reverse - it's the zeros of the little yellow 20s and 50s seemingly randomly distributed on back of the notes. Try it yourself - get a new $20 and play connect-the-dots.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Computer types tend to think in binary, and forget the real world is analog.
The EU is not looking for airtight prevention of forgery, which of course is probably impossible. They are looking to reduce the number of small time forgers that just go buy good off the shelf computer gear and turn out too good a forgery right now.
Look at it another way. You know that locks on your door aren't fool proof. If someone wants in, they can always rent a bulldozer. But you put the locks on, and they try to restrict the sale of lock picking equipment. No, its not a nice binary solution. But it does improve the odds.
Hmm, maybe this it that "fuzzy logic" I keep hearing about.
An earlier story covered discoveries that some commercial software already incorporated recognition of the Eurion constellation.
Once again, though, I disagree with yet another technical solution to a social problem. It's just like speed bumps in parking lots. Make life inconvenient and miserable for everyone because of the small percentage that abuse the system...
"Provided by the management for your protection."
A little known fact about CD/DVD writers:
Some CD/DVD writers write their unique serial number to every CD/DVD you burn:
http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq02.htm
Subject: [2-26] Is a serial number placed on the disc by the recorder?
(2001/01/06)
In general, no, but it appears that some of the newer consumer audio CD recorders write one. The Recorder Unique Identifier (RID) is a 97-bit code recorded every 100 sectors. It is composed of a brand name identifier, a type number, and a drive serial number. Recorders such as the Philips CDR870 write the RID to discourage distribution of copyrighted material.
I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of recent CD/DVD writers did this...
I like the idea of setting up every card with a fraud PIN. It works fine and spits out cash (to prevent you getting bruises), but also sets off a fraud alert alarm that signals it as fraud and alerts authorities, takes the guy's picture at the ATM, etc, etc. Attempts to catch the guy, in other words. Possibly even spits out special bills with the serial numbers recorded or something. Whatever it takes to get the suckers.
Anyway, then you can give the guy a PIN and though he'll get the cash, you'll get your card reported stolen automatically, the moment he does get it.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.