January 13, 2004
A Forged Sense of Security
Adobe and others put "anti-counterfeiting" measures into graphics apps.
So. New versions of some of the more popular image-editing apps out there now won't open anything that looks like certain types of banknote. Wonderful. I imagine that'll stop all those mean nasty forgers right in their tracks. I mean, it's surely unthinkable that they might use, say, an older version of Photoshop, or an open source solution such as the GIMP.
Sigh. Once again we have a pathetic "anti-crime" measure that will do absolutely nothing about the crime it targets, and merely affect the rest of us. Go us!
Now, this is what apparently happens if you try to open a scan of a modern UK £20 note in Photoshop 8. Predictably, version 7 opened the file without a problem. Still, I'm sure we can trust those pesky counterfeiters to upgrade, right?
Posted by James at 10:46
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Comments
Adobe's word on this is that the onus is on the banks of various countries to provide specimen images to graphic designers and people that have a legitimate use for these images. I'm sure none of them do provide these, but anyway.
I think it's only a matter of time before someone finds that PS8 can't open some innocuous non-banknote image because it has the same patterns in it by chance. It'll be interesting to see what Adobe's response is then -- maybe they'll stop responding to pressure from the finance sector to introduce stupid features that cripple the program.
Posted by: clc at January 13, 2004 11:47 AM
Ah, but you missed the point!
See, what this is *really* about is Adobe's PR and Marketing team getting to have a field day, running around, making ridiculous assertions that "the days of computer-based money counterfeiting are numbered" and other such nonsense, while utterly ignoring the nature of the real problem.
Given that my dad owns and runs a printing company and that I've done some reading of my own, I think it's pretty safe to say that without access to extensive other equipment, using a computer to print out forged banknotes is, to say the least, very hard. And if you're dealing with people who have access to this kind of other equipment, you're dealing with folk who can find a way around a poxy "error" message.
But the point is, in a time of economic "uncertainty", a big company is supposedly helping the financial world combat illegal activity. Which might just boost investor confidence in Adobe, and raise the value of their shares.
Maybe I'm wrong, or just being too cynical (is there such a thing?) about this, but that's how I'd view it.
Posted by: Kyle at January 13, 2004 12:09 PM