Adobe Photoshop blocks counterfeit $20 scans

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

By TED BRIDIS, AP Technology Writer

 

WASHINGTON - Adobe Systems Inc. acknowledged Friday it quietly added technology to the world's best-known graphics software at the request of government regulators and international bankers to prevent consumers from making copies of the world's major currencies.

 

The unusual concession has angered scores of customers.

 

Adobe, the world's leading vendor for graphics software, said the secretive technology "would have minimal impact on honest customers." It generates a warning message when someone tries to make digital copies of some currencies.

 

The U.S. Federal Reserve and other organizations that worked on the technology said they could not disclose how it works and would not name which other software companies include it in their products. They cited concerns that counterfeiters would try to defeat it.

 

"We sort of knew this would come out eventually," Adobe spokesman Russell Brady said. "We can't really talk about the technology itself."

 

A Microsoft Corp. spokesman, Jim Desler, said the technology was not built into versions of its dominant Windows operating system.

 

Rival graphics software by Taiwan-based Ulead Systems Inc. also blocks customers from making copies of currency.

 

Experts said the decision by Adobe represents one of the rare occasions when the U.S. technology industry has agreed to include third-party software code into commercial products at the request of government and finance officials.

 

Adobe revealed it added the technology after a customer complained in an online support forum about mysterious behavior by the new $649 "Photoshop CS" software when opening an image of a U.S. $20 bill.

 

Kevin Connor, Adobe's product management director, said the company did not disclose the technology at the request of international bankers. He said Adobe may add the detection mechanism to its other products.

 

"The average consumer is never going to encounter this in their daily use," Connor said. "It just didn't seem like something meaningful to communicate."

 

Angry customers have flooded Adobe's Internet message boards with complaints about censorship and concerns over future restrictions on other types of images, such as copyrighted or adult material.

 

"I don't believe this. This shocks me," said Stephen M. Burns, president of the Photoshop users group in San Diego. "Artists don't like to be limited in what they can do with their tools. Let the U.S. government or whoever is involved deal with this, but don't take the powers of the government and place them into a commercial software package."

 

Connor said the company's decision to use the technology was "not a step down the road towards Adobe becoming Big Brother."

 

Adobe said the technology slows its software's performance "just a fraction of a second" and urged customers to report unexpected glitches. It said there may be room for improvement.

 

The technology was designed recently by the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group, a consortium of 27 central banks in the United States, England, Japan, Canada and across the European Union (news - web sites), where there already is a formal proposal to require all software companies to include similar anti-counterfeit technology.

 

 

"The industry has been very open to understanding the nature of the problem," said Richard Wall, the Bank of Canada's representative to the counterfeit deterrence group. "We're very happy with the response."

 

Some policy experts were divided on the technology. Bruce Schneier, an expert on security and privacy, praised the anti-counterfeit technology.

 

Another security expert, Gene Spafford of Purdue University, said Adobe should have notified its customers prominently. He wondered how closely Adobe was permitted to study the technology's inner-workings to ensure it was stable and performed as advertised.

 

"If I were the paranoid-conspiracy type, I would speculate that since it's not Adobe's software, what else is it doing?" Spafford said.

 

I dont really have a problem with this. Aside from the people who make fake money with famous people on the bill, there arent any good legal reasons why anyone should be able to scan money with a scanner. The people who make funny looking money should stick to $1 bills since the government really doesnt care about the $1 bill (or better yet, the $2 bill, since some people don't even know what a real $2 bill looks like).

 

Of course, I don't know how well this will stop counterfeiting. There are other pieces of software that could be used (including previous versions of Photoshop) that would still allow you to do this. Plus, I cant imagine how many people who could afford Photoshop ($650) that would be counterfeiting money (although I know just about anyone can get pirate versions of it for free on the net, but thats another story).

[Styles 0]

Another preposterous abridging of our freedoms by the government of George W. Hitler! What's next? Banning use of computers?

[Rob E Dangerously 0]

do I not have the special printer that prints money on both sides of the piece of paper?

 

or do I have to print the front and back and go out as a dumbass with fake money?

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Another preposterous abridging of our freedoms by the government of George W. Hitler! What's next? Banning use of computers?

No, silly.

 

Putting anyone that lives in a "blue" state into ovens pre-heated at 450 degrees.

 

Pre-basted, if possible...

[cynicalprofit 0]

Funny I scanned a new 20 just fine. It was for art purposes.

[Mole 0]

How is it possible for a software to know when a $20 bill is opened or not?

[Ultimo Dugas 0]

Is the problem of people trying to pass off printed money from their home computer that big a of problem? Last I checked, there were numerous security features that could stop this from being effective.

[syxx2001 0]

What you do is print the front, then take the paper and put it back in the printer and print the back and you have the bill on both sides. But money is made out of cloth anyway so regular printing paper wont cut it.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

How is it possible for a software to know when a $20 bill is opened or not?

Its the new technology in the newest version of Adobe Photoshop. I saw this mentioned on the Screensavers the day I posted this, and they tried it. Basically, if you try to do a scan of the new $20 using the scaning feature in Photoshop, it will do a preview of it fine, but then when you do the real scan it will pop up an error saying that you can't scan currency.

 

I don't know how it works, and apparently, the only people who do know how it works are the fine people at Adobe. They aren't saying because they are worried that people who know how it works will find a way to disable it. Some people think that its a combination of the software and some sort of new security feature in the new $20 bill itself.