Xerox Photocopiers Randomly Alter Numbers, Says German Researcher

First time accepted submitter sal_park writes "According to a report from German computer scientist D. Kriesel, some Xerox WorkCentre copiers and scanners may alter numbers that appear in scanned documents. Having analyzed the output of two such devices, the Xerox WorkCentre 7535 and 7556, Kriesel found that "patches of the pixel data are randomly replaced in a very subtle and dangerous way": in particular, some numbers appearing in a document may be replaced by other numbers when it is scanned."

Comments

These numbers are not the true numbers

[hawkinspeter]

So, it has come to this.

Re:These numbers are not the true numbers

[durrr]

The dark lord is touching the world, and he's doing it through photocopy machines.

I would've expected printers or those cheap ISP-provided routers to be his preferred way of evildoing, though I guess even he/it couldn't get those to work properly.

Re: These numbers are not the true numbers

[rickb928]

The Dark Lord uses SAP to interact with our world. You know nothing?

Re:These numbers are not the true numbers

[davidbrit2]

Maybe before we rush to adopt XKCD, we should stop to consider the consequences of blithely giving this technology such a central position in our lives.

Slashdot affected as well

[Anonymous Coward]

Kriesel found that âoepatches of the pixel data are randomly replaced in a very subtle and dangerous wayâ

Slashdot users are advised not to use Xerox copiers for submissions.

Re:Slashdot affected as well

[intermodal]

Especially with such an international audience.

Re:Slashdot affected as well

[nmb3000]

"Smart parentheses" add no value to a document, either. They're just fluff. We should start using | for both opening and closing parentheses, no?

Wow, you've somehow managed to make Lisp even more difficult to read

|defun proj |y x||+|*|flet ||ip |x y||sum |* x y|||||* |/|ip x y||ip x x||x||x|y||

Congratulations are in order, but I'm sure people will still keep using it :|

Re:Mission Impossible 4?

[Entropius]

That's Xenu, not Xerox.

Free Speech

[BradyB]

Hey, even photo copiers and faxes need freedom of speech.

Re:Anti-counterfeiting

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh?

I'm sorry. I understand those 6 words individually. But when you put them in that order, they don't make any sense.

Read? The? Article? You are not making any sense, man!

Re:Anti-counterfeiting

[Anonymous Coward]

I lack the proper attention span to read the article. Let's make a deal: I quickly skim through it, and soon return here with another completely wrong conclusion. Be back in 30 seconds.

ImageRunner

[poofmeisterp]

OMG, my Canon ImageRunners are doing the same thing! It must be a virus!

I'd better write up a research document on this and request some grant money.

Corporate decision

[Dunbal]

This was a decision by Xerox to get around ever being sued for copyright violations...

Re:oh man, what a mess

[Hatta]

That's what she said.

NSA BUG

[Sentrion]

It's just a bug in the NSA eavesdropping algorithm.

Self-Correcting Bug

[JeanCroix]

I printed out the article in order to hang it on the wall above my office's Workcentre as a warning to coworkers. But apparently printing it fixed the problem, because the article headline became:

"Xerox scanners/photocopiers Scan Documents Flawlessly and are the Best in the Industry"

Re:Anti-counterfeiting

[Anubis IV]

You came up with the exact same conclusion as the author of the article you just read:

Hey now, there's no need to accuse me of reading the article just because I looked at the pictures.