Slashdot Mirror
U.S. Offers $50 Download
chill writes "CNN is reporting that the U.S. Government is offering low-quality images of its new $50 bill for artists, students and others who discover that their computers, scanners or printers won't allow them to view or copy pictures of the new currency, due to mostly-secret anti-counterfeiting measures built-in. This anti-copying technology has been discussed on Slashdot before. Now to go and test my new Epson scanner and printer to see if they're affected!"
There is, of course, a problem with this. The guy I bulk order my Tin Foil Hats from won't accept them. Maybe this guy will take them.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Poor Grant, even after death, has become quiet the specimen. Poor guy. Can't we let him RIP?
:-)
Although I think it's great that we are creating bills that we believe will curb counterfeiting shouldn't we also be working to make them look good? The new colors and everything are nice but definitely overused. It makes the bills look crowded and tacky. Reminds me of a hairdresser with too much makeup. The little yellow 20s and what appear to be 50s on the back of the new color bills are horrid. I looks like I dropped the bills in honey and couldn't clean it all off.
If I'm gonna pay $50 for a piece of paper it should at least be clean
I mis-read the title. I thought Uncle Sam was going to give me $50 for downloading stuff. If it was pr0n, I'd be set for life.
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
Not sure if these are exactly what are being referred to, but here are pdf images of the $50 and $20:
$50 front
$50 back
$20 front
-dave
http://millionnumbers.com/ - own the number of your dreams
I wonder how many stupid kids with color pritners are gonna try printing these up anyway, trying them out in change machines, and do other stupid things with them?
I needed to print up some new $50 for some quick cash.
Are they open-sourcing the $50 bill? Can we fork it?
Simpy
Couterfiting occurs because people are careless, yes the technology helps prevent it somewhat, but after working as a cashier in my midteens I was amased to how my fellow coworks would get fake bills and accept it... some of them looked so fake it was unbelivable.... also when i worked as a cahsier i noticed that these pens ( our only tool we where told to use to prevent counterfits) could easily able to give the wrong results on conterfits by just simply coating the paper with a fake plastic not enough to really feel it because of this it never alowed the ink to change color idefenying counterfit...
Loading Please Wait....
Here are the new Canadian 20$ bills.
the site has some info on the new security features on this bill- there are also new 100$ bills, the only thing missing is new $50 bills.
Why is our government allowed to use .com addresses? They're not a company, for-profit or otherwise. I know there are virtually no real restirctions on who can get .com, .org, etc., but isn't .gov for United States Government departments and agencies?
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Crap, I thought they had pirated software on their website... :-(
You forgot Poland!!
KARMA TAG! You're it.
Our money is so gay!
-Brazilian kidnappers.
What about the Lego Chocolate Printer? I remember as a kid eating chocolate coins but I want to eat chocolate bills!! :)
So my dot matrix won't do the job?
------
insert sig here,here, and here
Is that really a link to the Bureau of Printing and Engraving government dept website?
;). The American people seem to enjoy more entertainment and sometimes less professionalism in some cases but I'd rather have your comments since I find it pretty interesting.
It is festive, I'll grant you that, esp. disembodied heads asking me things
(Also the American commericals seem zany too, people going 'crazy' selling cars, in clown suits etc.)
What do you think?
Laugh. It's funny.
You mean Infected?
We are just a step away from Monopoly Money becoming the the Official US Currency.
Isn't Kerry already on the $20?
It's wierd that the Treasury Department's Bureau of Engraving and Printing has the web site moneyfactory.com. The web site itself is even wierder. Uncut currency? Framed bills? Custom serial numbers? 5lb bags of shredded currency? It's like the Franklin Mint, only cheezier.
1) Have the full copy of the Adobe Acrobat 2) save it as a jpeg, crop it down 3) open up in your favorite photo editor and presto! Security my ass.
Precisely how the technology works is a mystery.
The Article really makes me want find a way around this technology. I don't want to produce fake money, but more to the point of computer road-blocks are just not cool.
Some ideas that don't leave me with a less-usable computer:
Why not have a bar-code on every dollar bill that can validate each bill. If a serial comes up in the same place more than once, then it is fake and disabled. This would be a global database, but not unrealistic.
Why not continue the push for less paper money. Paper is nice, but it is expensive due to the short length of usage. Usually, the coined money is easily worth its value so producing a fake penny/quarter is not very worth while.
Stop using money altogether. Credit cards!
It just bothers me that the government is solving problems by disabling technology instead of leveraging it.
Why couldn't you just use an old printer?
I've been all over the treasury dept's web site, and I can't find anywhere that they offer images for artists, students and others who discover that their computers, scanners or printers won't allow them to view or copy pictures of the new currency.
They've got images up, as MankyD has pointed out, but the whole point seems to be educating people on how to recognize the bills, and how to find the anti-counterfeit gadgets. How did CNN come up with this spin?
--
Free gmail invites
I won't even try to click any of those links. I suspect some serious network sniffing, if that's the word. See who tries to counterfeit them, then catch them all in a big bag, that's what they're doing.
Most of the complaints about the anti-copying technology were about using them in art projects, making parodies, etc. Now that people can download copies, in addition to being able to use the graphics in their projects, they can skip having to scan them.
I did a project in high school a while back on counterfeiting, and anti-counterfeiting techniques. One of the experts in a Nova video said that as computer printers get better, the concern won't be the large scale counterfeiters, since they're easier to track down due to the large volume and equipment needed. It would be people on their home computers scanning money and reprinting it. This was 10-12 years ago, when inexpensive printers didn't have the capability to print that well yet. Not sure if that prediction came true (don't have the SS/Treasury numbers onhand), but it's an interesting historical account.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
Try viewing a JPG image (or whatever format) of the $50 bill. It's impossible to open with CS.
Some people happen to like collecting that kind of stuff and find the whole process of money making to be interesting. If it pleases the voting citizenry to have this kind of stuff avaliable to the public, its going to happen.
What are they going to do next? Put kids playing baseball on the five dollar bill???
-Derek
Treat me like a marketing stat, and I'll treat your movie like a series of ones and zeros
"Now to go and test my new Epson scanner and printer to see if they're affected!"
Screw that, I want to test my new microwave oven to see if Grant's eyes explode!
There are a series of 5 circles in a specific pattern... in the case of the new $50 it's the zeros in all the little "50"'s on the back.
Here's more info.
Registrant:
Michael James
2920 Chautauqua Ave, #8
Norman, OK 73072
US
Registrar: NAMESDIRECT
Domain Name: YOUFORGOTPOLAND.COM
Created on: 30-SEP-04
Expires on: 30-SEP-05
Last Updated on: 30-SEP-04
Administrative, Technical Contact:
James, Michael michaeljames@ou.edu
2920 Chautauqua Ave, #8
Norman, OK 73072
US
4052027473
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS2.MYDOMAIN.COM
*cough*
Could someone please explain?
George W. Bush is on the fake $200 bill, which was passed around as recently as last month.
For more information, click here.
IIRC we had to pay 5 cents per page.
Of course, if you fed the vending machine a copy of $5 bill, it couldn't detect that it was only a copy, and would add $5 to the balance on your "copy card"....
I was SHARING the $50, SHARING, I'm not a thief!!!
how long until
You ever see the back of a twenty dollar bill... on weed? Oh, there's some crazy shit, man. There's a dude in the bushes... Has he got a gun? I dunno! RED TEAM GO! RED TEAM GO!
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
prins out the top of the bill and stops. then prints out http://www.rulesforuse.org
If you can scan the bar code you need the connection, why not just use credit cards.
Those not wanting others to know where their money goes will not like this money tracking.
I ue my credit card all the time. It's better to budget, I get free stuff, and it is harder to steal.
If you download the PDF and save it as a JPG or GIF and try to load it in Photoshop you will get the following text:
"This application does not support the unauthorized processing of banknote images
For more information, select the information button below for Internet-Based information for restrictions on copying or distributing banknote images or go to www.rulesforuse.org"
However, Apple's image preview software opens it fine, as does it's PDF viewer (same software, called "Preview")
Very disturbing to play with and see how your use of your computer has been taken over by government secret methods that large corporations have agreed to.
Very 1984... you don't know your software has been compromised until it's already too late.
There is a rage in me to defy the order of the stars, despite their pretty patterns.
Opening up the PDF in xpdf for Linux causes the bill to be rendered and a few seconds later, the red colored "SPECIMEN" text is written ontop of the bill. It should be hard to remove this top layer, resulting in a government provided digital copy of a $50 bill. Lovely.
Didn't the government acidentally make this mistake with CIA documents that had people's names blacked out with a separate top layer, that was easily removed?
There are countless graphics packages out there, that can be used instead of the major players.
There are indefinate supplies of older scanners that are not protected, not to mention digital cameras.
I am pretty sure that the major players who counterfit, will just get cracked versions of software or use alternatives, meaning all this is doing is bloating legitimate users software for no real reason.
The software is provided free, which means it would be relatively easy for a skilled but crooked developer to disable the checks, specially as you would know what you are looking for!
Is it also pushing the price of hardware up, if they have to include extra memory to hold this software, or is it in the scanner software - computer side?
I really dont see this stopping anyone other than a total amatuer from scanning banknotes (and may even cause more problems, as if an amateur cant do a bad copy themselves they may look into more professional means of forging. I would rather they did a bad home copy, tried to use it and got caught - meaning one less idiot on the streets forging money).
Perhaps they would have been better off keeping the whole thing secret, so no one knows about it, and then have the software log all scans of banknotes into a central database, so the police could keep an eye on who is scanning notes. If forgeries appear in the area, they would know who was to blame......
ken
http://www.lsblogs.com/ Submit your blog for free, find blogs and blog resources at ls blogs
Free Blog submission, find blogs, tools and more at LS Blogs
Looking at the bill's picture, something occurred to me:
You know what we haven't had for awhile? A President/Prime Minister with a beard? Maybe that's what's wrong with government these days! Everyone knows you can trust people with beards!
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
What's to stop you from scanning 1/4 of a bill at a time and reassembling it? What about all of those drivers and software pre-anti-counterfitting? What about analog copying?
The whole "you can't scan this bill" program seems like a complete waste of taxpayer money and puts an unnecessary burden on software makers. Why didn't they take that money and invest it in making the bills themselves more secure like many European and Asian bills?
These latest revisions are a step but it's still pretty easy to print up counterfits and pull a fast one on some unsuspecting shop owner.
^nA! Creatures in my Head
Holy shit, we're slashdotting the US Treasury! We've come a long way from Fort Knox to "MoneyFactory".com. Spend these $50s, fake or not, while they're still worth something!
--
make install -not war
Opening up the PDF in xpdf for Linux causes the bill to be rendered and a few seconds later, the red colored "SPECIMEN" text is written ontop of the bill. It should not be hard to remove this top layer, resulting in a government provided digital copy of a $50 bill. Lovely.
Didn't the government acidentally make this mistake with CIA documents that had people's names blacked out with a separate top layer, that was easily removed?
they aren't exactly new, but in the race to make the worlds ugliest currency- I think Australia is winning by far.
The harder it is to counterfeit, the better. I don't care what it looks like as long as I can purchase a proper case of beer before the game on Sunday.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Ahh, the joys of open source!
They make plates the old fashion way, with light, film, acid and metal. ( oh, and ink )
It much more accurately reproduces the design, AND the method that is used to create real bills..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Great, the One World universal currency is ushered in, unheralded, marked with a pentagram. No wonder the paranoids are so freaked out by this stuff.
--
make install -not war
And it's proeminently visible in the $50 back picture of the new US bills.
I suppose Fark's photoshop competition didn't get the news...
What a bunch of dumbasses.
That explains the old saying
"queer as a three dollar bill"
Wasn't sure exactly what it meant until now.
Three dollar bill, cheerleader, Bush is GAY! That explains his over-compensating with all the tough guy talk! The Commander in Chief is a turd burgler, a donut puncher, a butt pirate, an ass master, a girly man! I knew there was something wrong with him! He didn't desert from the Air National Guard during Vietnam, they had him in the freakin' CLOSET!
You finally made the missing connection for me! Oh happy day, I finally GET Bush!
The best way to totally defeat this is to push printer paper up so that it costs $51.00 a sheet - not economic to forge then!
Of course, this will lead to counterfeit printer paper costing $49.00...
I thought there might be something wrong when printers cost $120 FOR A DECENT GOD DAMN PRINTER!
.rant over
To hide price hikes I guess they have been raising cartridge costs.
Well I guess if they can spend $ to make a printer that DOESN'T PRINT maybe they could SPEND SOME MONEY ON ONE THAT FUCKING DOES.
They didn't even bother to check cameras. And any counterfitter who robs america of more than $200 is going to be using a litho-engraved photo duplicate. That's what the colors a supposed to stop. Banks have been able to check duplicates with simple money counters for at least 20 years.
One man decided to counterfeit some money on his computer, so he printed off some high quality images of $20 bills. They looked good, but the new $20's have a hologram on them. So he got a roll of twenty dollar bills and cut out the holograms to past onto his counterfeits.
There you have it... All this anti-counterfeiting technology is working.
p.s. To my knowledge, this story is true.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
I tried taking a screenshot of the pdf and pasting it in Photoshop. It wouldn't let me paste it into Photoshop until the screenshot was taken while viewing the pdf at 30% zoom, or less. Seems pretty weird to me. I wonder how many programs are affected, Photoshop 7?, 6?, the GIMP?, surely not all image editing programs implement this.
When the current equipment doesn't work: dust off the old equipment.
The big problem not directly addressed however...
No matter how often they change the appearance of the currency: if an older (and easier to copy) version is still being accepted, then why bother counterfeiting the new ones? I mean, everyone still accepts the pre-1996 $20 bills worldwide.
This is not my sig.
Speaking of currency.. I hope this gets passed and we get a new dollar bill.. Its the best idea for new currency I have ever seen
/ libbill.htm
http://hcps2.hanover.k12.va.us/lms/liberty%20bill
Fire in the hands of the village idiot is no tool, but a weapon of mass destruction
When are people going to learn that throwing it in the faces of the people who are masters and professionals is not the way to keep it secure for any amount of time?
Up here in Canada, I get most of my downloads for free :)
Now, the image I can scan at one time isn't very large, maybe an area about the size of a pencil eraser at lowest magnification, but I would scan. step, repeat, and tile the resultant images.
I am sure that given proper incentive, I could modify the microscope's stage to automate the step and repeat function, as for now its still simple XY drive screws that position the sample under the lens.
Yes, it would take quite some time to do it right. It wouldn't surprise me if it took all night to do it.
But then, I don't know of any technology to defeat such a thing.
You see, I don't just do RGB, I can use any colors, including non-visible, on this setup. The camera itself is wideband mono. I flood the sample with whatever color of light I choose. Normal color photos involves a still sample and three captures, one each of red, green, and blue, which are subsequently overlaid as colors.
I routinely may look at things in infrared or ultraviolet. I can't see it but the camera can. Doing this, I can make "false color" images for things like failure analyses. Things that aren't visible in our eye's sensitive area of the light spectrum often are visible somewhere else in the spectrum.
About using credit cards... uhhh,,, that's the tinfoil hat nightmare. Cash is just about the only anonymous way to transfer wealth left. Just about anything else is traceable, hence, taxable. Unless, of course, you wanna go buy them something on your account and give them the something you bought for them.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
There is a vending machine at the Duty Free shop going from Canada to the US on the Queenston/Lewiston bridge that has a sign on it explaining that it excepts both Canadian and US currency.
This isn't going to make that much difference as long as vendors keep accepting the old bills that can be copied. Sure, the banks will be instructed to turn in the old ones to be shredded and replaced with the new ones, so in the long term any old bills may be treated with suspicion, but how long will that take?
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
if you live in Florida... don't make a Florida Fake-ID. Same principle for making fake money?
Why not make Thai Currency and then just do a currency exchange on it? Problem solved and I end up with super read, super secure American money.
Here's my little test: 1. Opened pdf 2. hit print scrn button (screen shot) 3. opened ms paint, I'm at work, no linux :(
4. pasted screen shot
5. printed screen shot
6. have fake $50
Boy was that tough.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
Or just import the PDF directly into Photoshop. The image posturization doesn't affect Photoshop versions prior to CS. I just printed one off that looks fine -- of course, a higher-res scan would be necessary to really be sure.
Funny how they haven't put a 50 MB scan online. I guess they're not that certain.
So, can I use that too to copy-protect my own documents, just by including those circle-patterns in my logo, for example ?
In my opinion, the Queen bears a striking resemblance to Yoda on the new note.
Google Image Search Yoda, and do a side-by-side comparison. Seriously.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
The difference is that the "Eurion" pattern, as it's called, is done TASTEFULLY on other country's notes.
On the US notes it looks like an afterthought, stamped-on in a rush.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
So pretty, in fact, I'd love to have a 10 foot tall pile of them just to jump in and toss up into the air all around me, and laugh like a madman. If you have any you don't want because you don't think they're aesthetically pleasing enuff, just send them over my way. I'll be more than happy to give them a welcome home.
It's much easier to go phishing instead!
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
If uncle same taxes you $50 for social security for downloading pr0n, is that considered a DP? since you are screwed twice?
Ithica hours
Saltspring Dollars
LETS
An overview of alternative currencies
Doesn't slashdotting a government webserver fall into some sort of terrorism bucket? The BATF will be at the /. door any minute with tanks! Run away!!!!!!!
Open picture in "Preview" on mac...
Edit --> Copy
New document in Photoshop --> Paste.
uh-huh.
When you can offer fake goods for exchange of real money on ebay or other auction sites? Atleast you won't need to print them anymore.
I'm wondering how this pattern could be embeded in images so that you prevent printing images taken from a web page. Anyone have inside track info on how this might be done?
Also havent these people learned anything in the past (bypass copy protection while holding [shift]) that these measures especially when widely publicized invite lotsa people to test this new security feature, then bypass it, then leak it out to the public. Now all those secret measures arent so secret anymore because you have millions of people discecting your security, then you have a currency floating around with exploits. Imagine people trading MS windows platforms as currency heheh.
I don't know what I wrote prolly makes no sense and is a bunch or jargon, but is it just me or does something seem strange about the way they are marketing and releasning the new fitty. You can't scan, but you can download.... Things that make me go hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Man, that was fast.
I write in my journal
Gosh, I remember Rainbow Magazine for the TRS-80 Color Computer advertising software to "print money" over a decade ago. And this was in the days of dot-matrix printers...
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
If it's so easy for someone with a Xerox copier to counterfeit U.S. currency, why don't we include something that can't be xeroxed? Like the little bit of plastic that's in the Euro?
Honestly, I think the U.S. wants to encourage small time counterfeiting operations. Their bill designs certaily suggest that.
Why not have a bar-code on every dollar bill that can validate each bill. If a serial comes up in the same place more than once, then it is fake and disabled. This would be a global database, but not unrealistic.
That's a fabulous idea!
I do this already. I always make sure to check every bill I get has been properly updated in the database. You wouldn't believe how many people out there are trying to use unregistered money. I mean really would you take just any old dollar? Who knows where it's been.
Once this takes off maybe we can expand it to $5 and $10 bills. The US Gov really is going at this wrong. They need to start small and prove the system works with the poor before bothering wealthy people who carry $50 bills.
The interactive guides to the 50 and 20 are very good. Excellent use of Flash. This is the sort of thing that Flash is good at - slick, well designed, intuitive, interactive guides that respond to user input immediately without clumsy screwing around with javascript, DHTML, and god knows how many other technologies you'd have to employ to get anything near the same effect.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Bad idea #1. I wouldn't want to carry around a pocket full of change. $100 dollars in bills is much easier on the back than $100 worth of silver dollars.
Stop using money altogether. Credit cards!
They track me enough with the credit cards I use. Sometimes you just have to be able to hand someone on the street a $20 bill.
The problem with most counterfeiters is that they get greedy. If they just counterfeited small denomination bills (1's) and used them when they were out of town and to pay for meaningless purchases at places it would be hard to catch (strip clubs, vending machines, etc.). It might not seem like a lot of money but if you think about all the time you use 1 Dollar bills it'd add up. Chances are you'd never get caught too.
will SANE stop you scanning these notes?
will GIMP block based on this "secret" pattern?
clearly not, as this shows. (GIMPed with SPECIMEN removed, but intentionally low res)
The protection is pretty weak if a user can get around it simply by downloading a different graphics program or a patch. Certainly a skilled counterfieter will be able to work around this.
Now, if this were hardware based, then it would be pretty formidible. You could still get around it though if you really wanted to - and don't the sort of people who are going to do this on a big scale really want to?
Joseph Farthing
http://josephfarthing.com
When (not if) someone posts the exact details on how this works, can we use it to secure our own documents and photos?
:)
I can think of a lot of ways to abuse this once it goes live
And while you're trying to scan all your bills, why don't you enter them at Where's George? It's an interesting project.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Photoshop to get around the measures -- I admit it is a bit sloppy, but here ya' go.
Screen Grab of Photshop of two $50
Finished $50 with Sample Text removed (poorly, I admit)
All this done in Adobe Photoshop CS in about 5 minutes. Basically, what I did was invert the colors in MS Paint (Yes, THAT MS Paint) and cut the image up into little pieces and Control + V into Photoshop CS. Then aligned them up, Merge Visible, Control + I, and used the Clone Tool to remove the Sample Text BS. Haha! Now, you reverse engineering overlords try a Software approach!
Laters
On a similar note, I was thinking about the nature of paper money vs. coins, considering whether it's easier to carry around dollar coins vs. dollar bills, and had to ask myself - if one or the other is generally more convenient, then why are we using both?
coins - compact, very durable. Harder to fake in some ways, easier in others (slugs in vending machines). A quarter weighs 5.7 grams, a dime 2.3 grams (everything below that is pretty much useless these days, and really we should be using 20 and 50 cent pieces for various reasons)
bills - lighter weight, more sophisticated anti-counterfeit measures, but the features hardest to fake are the ones generally ignored. Large flat size means they need to be protected by something, and folded to fit into pocket. Uses a relatively durable paper, and plastic notes are available that are even more durable, but not nearly as durable as coins. Why aren't they using bar codes for serial numbers? Can be rolled into a very compact tube. Weighs 1.0 gram.
but what about...
cards - sophisticated anti-counterfeit (including electronic, physical, and visual) options available. Lightweight but durable and compact. Plastic credit card weighs 4.7 grams. Paper business card weighs 1.0 grams.
If we used cards instead of bills, our money would be easier to carry around, quite durable, and could incorporate sophisticated electronic anti-counterfeit schemes like RSA authentication, embedded RFID, and so forth. Vending machines wouldn't eat or reject your money just because it's old. It could be the same weight. It allows the same hardware to read or use both "bills", credit cards, debit cards, and even cash cards - and if you used cards instead of coins, you wouldn't need anything else. This could allow people to never having to use cash at all, because there cards work everywhere. About the only downside is you wouldn't have the same thick stack of bills to shuffle through.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
"In God we trust."
The day that happens our country is fucked.
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.
After all the credit card fraud we have been suffering the past couple of years more and more people are tossing their credit cards and using cash again. Cash will always be the money of choice and is here to stay.
Money is money because people believe it is money.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
... "of what?" I'll bet I wasnt the only one ;)
Would you perfer that nobody be able to view/print your webpage?
If you've got something you don't want to have others print, don't put it on your website.
Is it just me, or is this the first well-designed US government website we've seen?
Honestly, it's pleasant to look at, easy to navigate, and actually provides a very nice service to the citizens of the United States without any major roadblocks. It essentially removes any objection to the anti-counterfeitting measures in place in the bills and in software.
And, IIRC, the bills in the PDF have a lot more wrong with them than the red Specimen text -- I think one comment here noted that this would prevent the bills from being read by a vending machine. Pretty cool either way.
Now if only we could start using polymer-based currency like Australia, we'd have TRUE counterfeit-proofed currency.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
We simply don't need a $50 bank note. 20's and 100's cover the bases. The fifty should be removed from circulation along with the $1 bill, the penny and the nickel. These changes acomplished, we should be looking at replacing the $5 bill with a coin and adding a ten dollar coin.
I don't quite see how their "copyright" works. It's quite easy to get a copy of it. Just take a screenshot using "shift + print screen" and then paste it into photoshop.
Bad karma for correcting people I always say.
The reference to Italian astronauts on the back is touching.
PSC 2210, latest drivers.
Even copy/paste the screen and save it as a JPEG file. Prints part of the note and then you get a centered http://www.rulesforuse.org text.
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
This is by far the best chain of replies ever on slashdot.
The greatest experience we can have is the mysterious.
- Albert Einstein
1a: And how long after that before it reports you to the feds when your try.
2: If you strip out those little circles that the system detects, or alter them enough to fail detection as currency, how many people you'd pass this bill to will notice the difference? Automatic bill changers maybe yes, but people???
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The pattern on currency that prevents copying has been given a name - the EURion constellation, because it was first widely observed on the Euro.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation for more information, including a link to a process to apply the pattern to your own documents (note that this only works with color copiers, so text documents could still be copied on a black-and-white copier).
It has the functionality of Adobe PShop CS, no government restrictions (especially if you compile it yourself), and it lets you spend that $1000 on something better... (e.g. the computer needed to run GIMP)
Open Source strikes again!
~lighting
If IY was a PC:
/bin/sh: command not found
[InuYasha]~$ sit
...because since it's on a plain solid background, you can just cover it up when scanning, and then reproduse it yourself by scanning and copying just one of the yellow 50s.
1. Open pdf in browser
2. Screen cap
3. Paste into photoshop
4. Print
Success. Let's try it a different way.
1. Open pdf in Acrobat Standard
2. Advanced > Export All Images
3. Open exported image (Glossy-face-web_Page_1_Image_0001.jpg) in Photoshop 7.
4. Print
Success again. Who was this supposed to stop?
Long signatures suck.
Have you ever noticed how hard it is to find actual tin foil in the store? Do you realize that most people have been conditioned to think of aluminum foil as equivalent to real tin foil, despite the fact that aluminum is practically transparent to mind control rays?
It isn't a coincidence, my friend. Alcoa is under Their control too...
Could you not just scan in a bill piece by piece? Even very irregular pieces, then just put it together with the imaging program. It's not like they can have the blocking in the software -- just use open source or an older program. It would have to be in the hardware, so just go piece by piece.
On that thought, why not just use somewhat older hardware too? This is completely useless, any counterfeiter with the means to print bills of any passable quality will have the means to scan them in, regardless of this new implementation of copy control.
Wow!
Consumer: *hands over candy bar* "That's it." ...Oh my god, this is completely obselete."
Clerk: "68 cents, please."
Consumer: *gives money*
Clerk: "Wait. What version is the money?
Consumer: "But it is so less bloated than the current version."
Clerk: "We don't accept older versions."
Consumer: "Grumble grumble..." (searches deeply in pockets for a crisp dollar bill and hands it over)
Clerk: "This won't do sir. WE don't accept THIS fork. This simply won't do."
Consumer: *pulls out gun*
Clerk: "No no no, that gun is only a release candidate. You can't possibly kill me with something so unsta--"
Consumer: *bam*
Fark readers mentioned this morning that Photoshop 8.0 would not let them edit the 50 under certain conditions.
(see fark.com)
I clicked the image, it popped up in 'Preview' I clicked print.
Was I supposed to use a Windoze box?
text...
Anti-Copy Technology.
Doesn't that just make you want to try?
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
In 1966 we were developing color copiers at 3M. Then it was a clunky, slow, 4 color process. The machine failure rate was once every 5 copies. Yet, the results were amazingly good. 38 years later, I still have copies that look as good as anything produced on an inkjet printer. All the copier companies at the time (IBM, Xerox, 3M and everybody else) were already told to "police yourselves carefully" on counterfeiting by the treasury department as the photocopying process was undergoing scrutiny by the government. Yet, an engineer on the project decided to copy a $5 bill just as a joke. He had to be fired that day as an example to others. Tough luck, especially since a Playboy centerfold also served as test material, but the project could have been axed if there was any threat to the stability of our currency. In the end there was no market in 1966 at the price/failure point of these machines. 3M eventually lost the copier business entirely to Xerox. The current HP color printers (non inkjet) would probably be the great-great grandchildren of these original color copiers.
Have you Meta Moderated t
I think it's mostly a pr move by adobe. Besides my hp does not support holographic ink anyway.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
I mean, MoneyFactory is cutesy and kinda funny. I didn't think anyone in the government has a sense of humor. Doesn't that scare anyone here? It's like if the website for the FBI was http://www.trenchcoats.com.
Ok... here's a question. What would happen if you took a very hi-res picture of the bill using a digital camera? Would the camera refuse to take the picture? Could you download it onto your pc?
Or, what if you covered up the fancy little zeros... say with a simple piece of paper the same color as the background, then scanned it normally?
I just think there are lots of creative problem solver types out here who could pretty much find a way around anything.
He's totally creeping out the Great One, eh...
You read about all these new anti-counterfeiting measures built in.. but how is this going to stop someone from just counterfeiting an old bill?
Here's a PDF detailing the "EURiOn constellation": http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/eurion.pdf
"who discover that their computers, scanners or printers won't allow them to view or copy pictures of the new currency, due to mostly-secret anti-counterfeiting measures built-in."
Built in to what?
I just tried to scan a $20 bill with Photoshop 7 and it worked fine. Printed OK too (1 year old Epson printer)
I think it would be a more informative web site if they quoted Poland's foreign minister from the Summer after the invasion. These statements put Poland squarely in the "bribed" part of the coalition:
"Poland seeks Iraqi oil stake," BBC News Online, 3 July 2003
Poland, which has sent troops to support the US-led forces in Iraq, has acknowledged its "ultimate objective" is to acquire supplies of Iraqi oil.
The Polish Foreign Minister, Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, said his country had never disguised the fact that it sought direct access to the oilfields.
He was speaking as a group of Polish firms signed a deal with a subsidiary of US Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton.
The US firm, Kellogg, Brown and Root, has already won million-dollar contracts to carry out reconstruction work in Iraq.
"We have never hidden our desire for Polish oil companies to finally have access to sources of commodities," Mr Cimoszewicz told the Polish PAP news agency. Access to the oilfields "is our ultimate objective," he added.
@de_machina
And why not break the anti-counterfitting portion into two separate parts? It can't recognize five dots when the image only has two or three.
This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.
Can I create a small circle that will confuse Photoshop or a copier? For example, add a small red or green circle near the pattern using a colored pencil?
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Someone who is hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt (i.e. anyone who has gotten a mortgage for a house recently) can still be considered a good credit risk, as long as they are making their payments. Actually, as anyone who has bought a house knows, being that much in debt is actually a signal that you are a better credit risk than normal: You end up being deluged with offers to extend credit to you, usually in the form of additional mortgages.
Being in debt is fine, it's an inability to make the interest payments that is the problem.
Having plastic notes is a good way to prevent people from easily copying them.
-- Get
Remember the articles a few months back saying that computer security was too weak, and you could usually get people's passwords by bribing them with chocolate? That's why the author of the article wasn't afraid to post non-anonymously, because the Black Helicopters will just snatch the guy with chocolate melted on his face.
The new Yellow $20 bills were created for use during Yellow Terror Alert. The new Red $50 bills are being prepared for after the election, when we go to Red Alert.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Our money is so gay!
For reproducing fine art they use drum scanners and a variety of propriatory software scanning packages.. If anyone were to try to copy money this would be the way. Real money is printed Gravure anyways, which wouldn't be too hard to set up if you could afford it. But for someone like me who does have access to a drum scanner and gravure plates it would be too easy to print up some money if i could match the paper right. As a printer, i'm disspointed that my Epson 7600's capabilities to print certain shades of green is crippled because of it's ability to copy money. They should just use some out-of gamut colors like hot pink, ones that cannot be scanned in or printed.
And, this defeats cameras because...?
Any computer cracker, or bank note counterfacturer knows how to retouch bank notes, and print them.
;-) This government is sarcastic.
Launch eDonkey 2000, look for Photoshop CS, download it, install it and apply the crack.
Go back to eDonkey 2000, look for Photoshop Banknote Patch, download it, apply the patch, and there you go. The patch has a banknote image attached just to make sure the patch works.
Try it yourself
Come on...
Have a blast!
As told by the Woz here.
I would love to know how much our government has subsidized companies such as Adobe and Burson Marsteller...and for what? Just go to http://www.rsad.edu/~lhernand/temp/Sample.pdf. Obviously, the copy protection can be bypassed, and Burson Marsteller didn't even do a good job of protecting the PDF in the first place. They needed to place the word "Specimen" on the bill, but they do it with a simple overlay in Acrobat?
I hate knowing that our hard-earned tax dollars are being wasted.
--LOHM
How did they get them into the pdf's to download/view? Huh?!!!! Yes!!! Answer me that!
They can be scanned... You just have to know how...
I'd say the easiest way is to use an OLD COPY of photoshop *(I think I had 5 sitting around someplace at one time...)
Blahh... Anything that relies on current software to foil the attempts can be gotten around... Heck, if you actually coded your own photoshop like software but just left out the circle pattern thing, it would work... or how about using Gimp? Does it support the pattern recognition that would stop scanning the new bills? If not, does that mean that if you have Linux in your home that your a potential crook? Are only WINDOWS users that have photoshop innocent? Not hard folks... almost as easy as a black marker around the edge of a cd.....
Of course I don't recommend any of this, just pointing out what I think is an obvious Gaf.
Hey, now we know how to REALLY make the open software nich earn money... Just print it...
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
Rather then the current system *scam* of simply printing money to loan to government when then has to print even more money to pay it back. We are doomed to never be able to pay off the national debt. It would take a hell of a lot of effort to mine gold out of seawater. Be easier to haul a asteroid back to earth and that anit likely to happen either. Give me a gold standard again before we wipe out our middle class with our huge national debt.
Norfed
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
I'm sure if you press PrtScn... open Paintbrush and select Edit|Paste you'll get a copy of the screen containing the bank note? How hard is that! And if you can see it you can take a photo of it and scan that! I hope they didn't pay for this so called "anti-counterfeiting technology" ?
Okay ladies and gentlemen, take out a new $20 (or $50 or whatever) bill. Now, look at the back. See the yellow "20"'s all over the back of the bill? Ignore the 2's and look at the 0's. Do you notice the pattern?
o
o
o
o
o
If you examine the bill, you will see this pattern repeated over and over in the 0's, in multiple orientations but always with the same 4 angles and distances. This is the pattern Photoshop looks for to detect US currency. (Conspiracy theorists will be amused to note that if you examine recent Euro notes, they bear the SAME PATTERN.)
If yer hardware had no restrictions before downloading that 'free fifty copy', rest assured that they will after that. DRM has many ways of infiltratin folks 'pooters. The file downloaded will probably not be a pure file, but a supposed self executin 'zip' or somesuch file. Then WATCH OUT! You been lojacked baby!
as long as they're accepted in businesses and stores...
WHO CARES?
Please don't mod up a punchline that doesn't include the rest of the
This would be a great way to stuff up company/family/school photos etc. They could not be loaded into photoshop and printed or put into newsletters etc with us in the frame. Instead, the person trying to produce said newsletter would get a scary message about them being a forger, and a PC that won't proceed.
Effectively, in a few years when all photography has been gone digital and old equipment has been obsoleted, no one will be able to take a photo with me in it, ever! Or even better, if they put this stuff into all digital photo systems, I could get a paintjob on my car that foils speed cameras......hmmm
I was in Romania in April and found that the Romanian 10,000, 50,000 and 100,000 lei notes all have the circle patterns as well. Like Aussie currency, the Romanian currency has a plastic, waxy feel to it and coolest of all incorporates little transparent plastic windows. I thought it was funny that such measures would be taken to prevent the counterfeiting of notes worth 30 cents US. Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Turkey didn't have the circle patterns as I recall, only Romania.
Paper is for submission only and internal discussion only. Paper has been placed on embargoed status pending internal peer review. Please do not distribute until released by committee.
Volucris Niger Semaj Llewdlac Cranial University
* Kingdom Animalia
* Phylum Chordata
Subphylum Vertibrata
* Class Aves
* Order Trochiliformes
* Family Trochilidae
Subfamily Trochilinae
* Genus Volucris (Llewdlac, 2004)
* Species Niger (Llewdlac, 2004)
Description: A flying creature reported by various eyewitnesses. The
characteristics of this flying creatures are:
Rotary Wing, oval or egg shaped body, always appears a uniform black in
color with no markings and is accompanied by a loud mechanical or
roaring sound.
Size varies but if eyewitness reports are correct this is the largest
avian known to exist in the world that can hover.
Native to: North America with sporadic sightings in other countries.
Known Habitat: The habitat of Volucris Niger is varied. Eyewitnesses
have reported it's appearance worldwide but the most sightings have been
in North America. The highest percentage of sightings has been at
transitory locations where firearms are sold, where religious activities
are present and where reports of unidentified or experimental aircraft
have been reported. There is no apparent reason for the wealth of
sightings at these locations other than a higher than usual interest in
the Volucris Niger on the part of the participants at these locations.
Mating: Volucris Niger according to eyewitness accounts is a solitary
creature when appearing in non-secluded locations. Mating rituals are
unknown.
Young: There have been several sightings of unusual variations of the
Volucris, both in color and size. Since it is known that several species
young exhibit different coloring than the parent it has been postulated
that these are offspring.
Sightings of young have occurred at the following locations.
American Eurocopter, Bell Helicopter, Boeing Rotorcraft, Brantly
International, Enstrom, Rotorway International, Schweizer Aircraft
Corporation, Sikorsky Aircraft.
A previously unknown variation, the Volucris Niger Pusillus has been
sited at Ultrasport.
Reproduction: An unconfirmed report that the Volucris performs
fertilization of eggs while in flight has been presented. In this report
the Volucris was observed expelling what the observer considered an
ejaculate. What was unusual in this report is that the ejaculate was
almost always expelled into fixed structures or vehicles of a specific
shape and color. The ejaculate was observed to be highly unstable and
damage to the area of ejaculate impact was severe. It is unknown what
purpose this serves the reproduction of the Volucris but researchers are
continuing their studies.
A counter theory has been argued that this is not a method of
reproduction but a method of protecting it's territory from predators.
It is assumed that fixed structures and vehicles of a certain shape and
color trigger an instinctive protective response. It is possible that
the Volucris is initiating an instinctive response based on the
characteristics of a now extinct predator species.
Trademarks mentioned are the property of their owners.
From: "Taxonomy of American Mythological Creatures" copyright Semaj Llewdlac all rights reservered
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
...printing the downloaded images on their "anti-counterfeiting printer"? And then scanning them back with their "anti-counterfeiting scanner" into their "anti-counterfeiting software"?
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2