Canon Blocks Copy Jobs Using Banned Keywords

aesoteric notes that a future version of Canon's document management system will include the exciting breakthrough technology that will OCR your printed and scanned documents, and prevent distribution of keywords. Documents containing the offending words can be sent to the administrator, without actually telling the user just what word tripped the alarm. The article notes that simply using 1337 for example will get around it.

Comments

Re:Names?

[betterunixthanunix]

I wonder if this sort of censorship will find its way into public libraries. You know, they'll claim there is a national security interest in prevent certain kinds of pamphlets from being printed, or something to that effect, and before you know it a routine trip to the library will turn into an interrogation in a back room somewhere.

From the "don't give them any ideas" dept.

[bughunter]

All a publisher would have to do is to embed a code or passphrase or optical pattern on the pages of their copyrighted publication and then arrange with manufacturers such as Canon or Xerox not to duplicate those pages. The pattern could be a watermark in the background of the content, defeating attempts to obscure it with a post-it not or some such.

I predict a huge demand for older, dumber photocopiers.

Re:From the "don't give them any ideas" dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

They already do this for money. It's called the EURion constellation.

Many copiers are known to shutdown permanently - as in require a visit from the repairman (who will probably report you to the secret service or equivalent anti-money-counterfeiting police in your country) - when presented with that pattern.

It's just begging for mischief makers to abuse by putting the pattern on all sorts of regular documents.

You just can't make an allegation like that without presenting a citation or link to a list of copiers known to behave in such a manner.

How are we to know which copiers we can brea^H^H^H^Havoid breaking?

Re:Names?

[Technician]

If you want to block copying of some documents, you can simply watermark them with the anti counterfeiting constellation. Use something that will print the constellation and print up a ream of paper. Use the anti copy paper for the documents you don't want copied.
Print this in yellow ink in the background.
http://globalpapersecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/150px-EURion.svg_.png/

Re:How Long...

[mysidia]

It's amazing how versatile the Chatroulette technology concept could be. The recognition of human body parts from images surprisingly seems to have more in-demand applications than computer vision in general; and all to control people and prevent them from doing stupid things.

Genitalia image detection could stop abuse of hand-washing robots, keep certain nastiness off slashdot, AI Physicians

It's amazing people drop to the level of stupidity they'd actually try to photocopy genitals, disregarding the obvious risks involved... that makes them dumber than the computer in that action.

A word from the Vendor if I may

[Dan B.]

This has nothing to do with foul language and everything to do with people walking out the door with account numbers, medical records, credit card info, social security numbers and other valuable private information.

Yes, this is true.

Although I don't know why this is "Breaking News" considering it has been offered on Xerox products for over 3 years.
And I should know, we sell this stuff to government departments purely based on the security we can offer them.

It might be easy to hand write the details off the screen for circumvention, but that is only going to net you a small data set. These systems are designend to stop people walking off with entire client databases and that type of thing. In the governemnt, it's more about keyword 'flagging' that sends the MIB to your desk on very short notice.