Dobie for Gov?
Posted on 01/12/2004 8:04:05 PM PST by demlosers
(AP) Adobe Systems Inc. acknowledged on 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.
San Jose-based 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 wouldn't name which other software companies have 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.
A rival graphics program by Ulead Systems Inc. also blocks customers from copying currency.
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 in Photoshop's instructions at the request of international bankers. He said Adobe is looking at adding 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 the technology was new and 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, 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.”
He said nearly all counterfeit currency in Canada is now created with personal computers and ink-jet printers.
“We've seen a shift of what would normally be highly skilled counterfeiters using elaborate equipment to basically counterfeiters who need to know how to use a PC,” Wall said.
Some policy experts were divided on the technology.
Bruce Schneier, an expert on security and privacy, called the anti-counterfeit technology a great system. “It doesn't affect privacy,” he said. “It stops the casual counterfeiter. I can't think of any ill effects.”
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.
Dobie for Gov?
After installing any of the CS upgrades, your computer will first have to connect to the internet for authorization before the program will run. Then, if you reformat, replace your hard drive, or make other changes in your system, or sometimes for no apparent reason at all, the program will again contact Adobe over the net for authorization before it will open. Adobe, of course, keeps all of this information (and who knows what else) for their own future reference -- as their "Privacy Policy" statement informs you while the computer is seeking permission to load the program you paid for. It's a very creepy feeling, to say the least, and it's not worth any of the small improvements the CS upgrades offer.
Until some artist tries to make a picture of "gag money" with, say, Saddam's head in place of George Washington's and loony slogans on the "bill." Or a picture features a prominent piece of a bill but not a major portion.
Not only the new currency, but the old currency, as well, can't be counterfeited using an inkjet printer. Here are some of the technologies that make it not even worth attempting:
Those are just some of the technologies that are being used on our currency. Some of these technologies, along with many other technologies that cannot be duplicated by an inkjet printer, are being used on all major foreign currencies, as well. Any idiot who tried to pass a bill printed on even the highest quality inkjet printer would be asking for trouble.
The only purpose that this gimmick of the government's serves, is to limit creativity. But the real factor that proves that they haven't got a clue is that there are probably a million programmers around the world, who can write their own scanning and image manipulating software and many of them will probably do so and some will post the result to the Internet, as Shareware or Freeware. Some of those programmers are in China and other countries, where the US government can pi$$ and moan all they want and not have any effect.
It's just more brainless tripe from our government. I've been a Photoshop user since version 2 and may never have reason to copy part of all of a bill, but just on principle, I'll be looking for some of those programs that don't have such restrictions in them, in the future. This actually opens up a big market for some foreign entrepreneur, who might want to use that edge to create a non-compromised product that will compete with Photoshop.
Adobe may have shot themselves in the foot this time.
I give the Feds about 10 days to post a 'honeypot' crack.
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