We received a TIFF image from a customer, of a $20 bill. The image does *not* violate any laws regarding reproduction of currency (it’s not even close to actual-size, and it’s not a "flat" portrayal – it’s wavy, as if it’s fluttering in the wind. Nor is it real-color.
However, Photoshop CS refuses to open the image, and provides an error message regarding the (il)legality of currency reproduction and an "information" button that takes you to the web. (Photoshop 7, of course, has no such qualms).
What the hell is this? In my book this is completely unacceptable – Photoshop is an image editor, not a censor, government policy enforcer or anything else.
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Photoshop CS refuses to open the image, and provides an error message regarding the (il)legality of currency reproduction and an "information" button that takes you to the web.
I will – I’m going to examine the image a bit more thoroughly when I have the time (looking for anything in the EXIF data, file header, etc. that Photoshop might be recognizing as opposed to actually analyzing the image content).
I wish I could post the image somewhere for you to see, but since it’s client property I don’t feel that would be appropriate.
Is there a child out there having fun at the expense of his/her anger towards Adobe ?
JUST asking
"Brian" wrote in message
We received a TIFF image from a customer, of a $20 bill. The image does *not* violate any laws regarding reproduction of currency (it’s not even close to actual-size, and it’s not a "flat" portrayal – it’s wavy, as if it’s fluttering in the wind. Nor is it real-color.
However, Photoshop CS refuses to open the image, and provides an error message regarding the (il)legality of currency reproduction and an "information" button that takes you to the web. (Photoshop 7, of course, has no such qualms).
What the hell is this? In my book this is completely unacceptable – Photoshop is an image editor, not a censor, government policy enforcer or anything else.
I don’t have PSCS yet (just 7), but how about someone out there give this a test- scan in your own bill and see if PSCS will open it? It’s not illegal to scan it in and use it, so long as you follow the guidelines www.piasc.org/PDF_files/CurrencyRepro.pdf
$20 $50 etc. Bank of England £10 or £20 Sterling, etc. all throw up the warning dialog
However, Photoshop CS refuses to open the image, and provides an error message regarding the (il)legality of currency reproduction and an "information" button that takes you to the web.
It won’t even let you scan the note. The following warning appears:
"The law sharply restricts photographs or other printed reproductions of paper currency, checks, bonds, revenue stamps, and securities of the United States and foreign governments."
what does that have to do with photoshop OPENING the image. That states it’s only a problem on printing. The dialog should be displayed if the user tried to print the image, not open it.
Scan a note at full size and colour and you get the warning, but no image!
Comply with the following guidance and you’ll be OK
Photographic or other likenesses of other United States obligations and securities and foreign currencies are permissible for any non-fraudulent purpose, provided the items are reproduced in black and white and are less than three-quarters or greater than one-and-one-half times the size, in linear dimension, of any part of the original item being reproduced.
You might also read the rules applying to other countries.
This is such a touchy subject, and since PS or adobe doesn’t know what teh final image may be, then the error should be at the end of the pipe line if still the illegality is still there. And why is Adobe getting into this? Most would say teh problem is with printing currency, not with making an image that could be for web, or for a montage, or even just because I want to play with the image.
Besides, PS-CS is slow enough already without this.
It will open a grey scale scan with alternate dimensions (maybe full-scale I can’t recall)!
still, if as brian says, it’s wavy, that should not be a "reproduction".
Dave, it’s about YOU reproducing. Now in that context think about just how stupid that statement is – think hard – real hard – if you can’t think then open your wallet and check a $20 bill. Do you think Photoshop is so smart that it can tell a real $20 bill from a copy? Now "think" very hard before you answer!
BTW: I’m not taking the piss out of you – just suggesting that folk think about what’s going on here! Again, think!!!!!
Do you think Photoshop is so smart that it can tell a real $20 bill from a copy?
I suspect that upon opening an image, PS looks for certain telltale patterns to determine if it’s currency or not. If the patterns are present, you get the dialog.
I don’t know that it is true, it’s just a guess, but that would account for Brians assertion that PSCS is slow because it is analyzing every image for these telltale marks.
Further, if I undertand what Ian is saying, and if my guess is right, then when PSCS finds these marks, and they are of a certain size, the next check would be for color depth. If the image can’t pass that criteria, it’s "flagged" as a nonuse item, regardless of whether it’s wavy or not.
and since PS or adobe doesn’t know what teh final image may be, then the error should be at the end of the pipe line if still the illegality is still there
exactly.
Do you think Photoshop is so smart that it can tell a real $20 bill from a copy?
no. nor should it be. It shouldn’t be doing ANY image recognition except (debatably) at the final output point, that is, printing.
Now "think" very hard before you answer!
I don’t know where you’re going (or are trying to lead me). Seems pretty simple. Do YOU think PS should be doing image recognition, and if so, should it be doing it at the point it is?
Dave, it’s about YOU reproducing. Now in that context think about just how stupid that statement is – think hard – real hard – if you can’t think then open your wallet and check a $20 bill.
I don’t see your point. I know what a 20 looks like. Is that your point? Apparently ps does too.
I’m not taking the piss out of you – just suggesting that folk think about what’s going on here!
I am thinking about it. And I’m not liking the conclusions I’m coming up with.
it’s "flagged" as a nonuse item, regardless of whether it’s wavy or not.
possibly. maybe that section that contains the "marker" is not distorted.
maybe that section that contains the "marker" is not distorted
Well, in truth we don’t know the criteria. It may look for five markers, each having to have five specific characteristics. At 70% or greater, it gets flagged – just guessing and making up numbers to illustrate the point.
It shouldn’t be doing ANY image recognition except (debatably) at the final output point, that is, printing.
Right. Unless there is some kind of law or requirement by governments for digital imaging programs, indicating that if they include this functionality, then they can sell to the government.
Personally, I think the concpet is ridiculous. In today’s day and age, the image has little to do with ones ability to counterfeit; it’s the paper. <shrug>
[Edit] Mark’s example is perfect for making the point that PS shouldn’t be analyzing the imgage content. He obviously feels he’s within the "fair use" guidelines by posting the image. It has the words "specimen" on it. So… why then does photoshop deem it illegal to open?
This discussion prompted me to scan a US$20 bill into PSCS in color, full size. Worked fine. Then I printed it in color. Worked fine. Then I closed the file, and reopened it fine. No error messages at any point. Then I tore up the printout.
Does this process really not work for some installations?
I do not know any counterfeiters, but how can you make the greyscale version in the first place? Or scale it? And scale is relative, so at what dpi, on what resoolution of a monitor? How do you get to this utopia of safe zones if the program that changes the image into a "legal" representation will not open the file?
And even still, I should still be abke to save my file, since it may still be a WIP. I jst do not think that Adobe should be doing this, but if they must, I say again, it should be on output only.
It’s NOT fool proof, I’ve already figured out a workaround with the image supplied by Mark. I can get Mark’s image into a Photoshop file at the correct dimensions and color depth, it just takes an extra step or two.
This discussion prompted me to scan a US$20 bill into PSCS in color, full size. Worked fine. Then I printed it in color. Worked fine. Then I closed the file, and reopened it fine. No error messages at any point. Then I tore up the printout.
That’s interesting, because we just did the same thing – scanned a new $20 (on a Lino-Hell drumscanner, 100%) and Photoshop CS would not open it, which indicates that Photoshop is indeed analyzing the content of the file (as opposed to some EXIF or other metadata in the file).
Shameful. Absolutely shameful.
Brian
PS. Mark, did you scan a *new-design* $20, or the old design?
That’s interesting, because we just did the same thing…
And yes, before any wisenheimers jump in, I have already deleted the file. 8^)
Now, since I’ve admitted on a public forum that I scanned a $20, I guess the FBI will be at my door shortly (since they can do so under the stealthily-approved-under-cover-of-SaddamCapture Patriot II act.)
Photoshop 9.0 will undoubtably scan images for bare boobs and/or nipples. Version 10 will require all human images to submit a form stating that they are of legal age.
Hold on, 8.0 may already be doing that! Who knows?
Arrogance, thy name is ADOBE. What else is buried in Photoshop CS for us to find that has not been openly announced?
Sorry, I was referring to the bill Mark Heirs posted. I missed a few posts there.
I downloaded and could not open that file with Photoshop CS (Mac – yeah I’m a Mac guy who’s trespassing). However, I can open the jpg in Illustrator CS, copy, then paste into Photoshop CS, Save, close, and reopen the image fine.
Does anybody know a good DUPLEX inkjet and a supplier for media which print on BOTH sides with the same quality ?
I have a vague idea how to overcome our actual budget problem (we have a budget but we are not allowed to spend the money .., a result of the GOVERNMENT´s UNIVERSITY OPTIMIZATION CONCEPT).
I hear that Photoshop CS2 will filter out porn too. 😉
And that’s really what bugs me about this – right now Photoshop appears to be disallowing banknotes. But what it, somewhere down the line, someone at Adobe or elsewhere decides that it’s inappropriate to view images of naked women, or men, or pictures of guns, or aborted fetuses, or little old ladys smoking cigarettes…
What right does Adobe have to disallow the user to open any image based on its content? Last time I checked this was America (where I am – I’m not trying to exclude our foreign friends), although it feels less and less so all the time.
What right does Adobe have to disallow the user to open any image based on its content?
I don’t disagree with you. But it may not be a "right". We don’t know yet that it isn’t a requirement of some sorts. I wouldn’t think Adobe would have a group of people around the table and say "hey, what if we prevent people from scanning in money? Wouldn’t that be cool?".
I’m being ridiculous for the sake of example.
More to the point, I’d bet it’s a requirement in order to participate in certain markets, OR in order to secure a market, like the government.
It’s funny, I initially got that image off the US Treasury site a couple of months ago. I can’t seem to find it now. All the current ones have ‘specimen’ written on them, and open without error in CS.
Will it open a rotated version? mirrored? And I think we are all with you on the speed factor. If every image is scanned for pattern recognition it must slow things down, even if it is just a small amount.
As I reported, I was able to scan and open an "older" $20 bill in PSCS. However, it will not open a scan of the new multicolor $20, or the jpg that Mark posted. Interesting.
I find this more disturbing than activation, and very creepy
I just tried this on scans of a US 20 and a Euro 10, CS would not let me open either one, but I could open it in Paint and resize it by 50% and then open in CS. I could then resize back to the original size and save but CS would not re-open the file.
Possibly the American gov’t asked Adobe to slip some code into PS to help stem the tide of counterfeiting. I’m sure Adobe engineers didn’t decide to do this on their own and no, this is not a conspiracy theory.
And I think we are all with you on the speed factor. If every image is scanned for pattern recognition it must slow things down, even if it is just a small amount.
A co-worked made an interesting theory: perhaps there is a pattern of some sort in the new bills, that when scanned becomes recognizable to Photoshop as a watermark of sorts – Photoshop wouldn’t be scanning the entire image pixel-by-pixel, but rather would be identifying that watermark and acting on it.
Like others, I’d like to know what else PSCS will not allow. I’d already gone back to PS7 because of performance issues in CS, but this is an eye opener.
LOL… I happen to have a NZ$10 in my wallet from my recent vacation (beautiful country BTW – I can’t wait to get back!) and I was going to try scanning it later…
This is an intersting topic to play around with…co-workers here are giving me a hard time about being someone who if told "you can’t do it", will try and find a way that "I can do it". Of course, prior postings have already explored some of those ways, so I’ve just been playing around with other things, and I first rescaled Mark’s image so it was true to actual size (legal or not). Here are some of my observations:
1. Doubled image size in ThumbsPlus then opened in PSCS just fine. Reduced 50% to original, true size in PSCS. Saved as PSD in PSCS then reopened without problems…that’s odd, since quality is same as if a TIFF and certainly better than JPEG, yet neither TIFF or JPEG would open. Perhaps it is (correctly) thought that the TIFF and JPEG formats are more easily distributed and used than the PSD format.
2. From true scale image (PSD or TIF): Select All to copy…not allowed. Drag layer to another image…allowed . Again odd since dragging a layer to another image effectively performs a copy.
3. In layered images, one test found that the image would not reopen if saved with the banknote layer opacity at 50%, but it would reopen if the opacity was at 75% or higher. However, using a different and larger background layer, the image would save and reopen fine, regardless of opacity. Cropping the image down to where the background was only about 10% larger than the banknote, the file would not reopen after a save. These cases were all with layers maintained.
4. Repeating the above but flattening the image before a save, one instance found the file wouldn’t open if the banknote layer was at 75%, yet another with a different background layer would open.
And so on and so forth.
To me, it all appears that Adobe has implemented some sufficiently complex image recognition techniques that a banknote can be distinguished from a background it resides on, varying according to the content of the background and the percentage that is masked by the banknote. Similarly, partial opacity doesn’t necessarily stump PS CS from detecting the note. What is curious to me however remains that while layered files often open just fine, whether TIFF or PSD, it is the flattened ones which often will not open. Yet, it is the layered files that would more easily accommodate separating out the banknote image from any other background images it was combined with.
I nearly wonder if embedding this banknote recognition capability in Photoshop was done almost more for a "curiosity item" to the developers, since it seems so easily defeated. Also, going back to Brian’s original post, I wonder how much this image detection affects the overall performance of PS CS? Given how quickly the error dialog is generated, it must not affect performance too much.
Watch out!- the "powers that be" are monitoring this thread to implement further censoring filters! Please don’t give "Them" any more ammo, our future liberty is at stake!!!!
Multiple pages, duplex printing… all to prevent you from printing money
Yes, and there went my little sideline business. <g>
Like I said, though, I’m curious about what else PS CS is doing that was not in the "features" list. ("Slower than ever!" was not listed either, but I’m drifting off topic. I know, I should post in the already existing threads.)
Other than that, welcome to the world of John Ashcroft!
I will – I’m going to examine the image a bit more thoroughly when I have the time (looking for anything in the EXIF data, file header, etc. that Photoshop might be recognizing as opposed to actually analyzing the image content).
I wish I could post the image somewhere for you to see, but since it’s client property I don’t feel that would be appropriate.
MMmm!
Just did a scan of an UK £10 note using Photoshop CS and my HP ScanJet 6300C. Photoshop stopped me straight after performing the full scan and brought up that warning message. No time to even save the image 🙂
Interesting behaviour indeed.. I wonder if they’ll start to add code to future releases to prevent people from scanning/opening files containing scanned credit cards, postal orders and anything else that could potentially be used for fraud..
Well I for one, think it’s pretty significant that this new release prevents duplex printing, and is now acting as a government watchdog of sorts, to NOW try to keep dishonest people honest. Activation was to keep honest people honest. Looks like the entire spectrum is now captured.
Unless there’s a government regulation, I see this as outright censorship. The laws posted on the rules of use page dictate what PEOPLE can or cannot do.
Psychologically: After the first few posts, I’m starting to believe we all haven’t just been punk’d…
Technically: might detection be based upon the built-in Digimarc filter (since PS v 5?)? I hate to think of the performance hit for some extensive recognition algorithm (even if it was perhaps provided to Adobe by the NSA).
Politically: Don’t try scanning pages from that Almanac…
Conspiratorially: Such capability now built-in to the same Adobe version with "product activation" also built-in.
Well I for one, think it’s pretty significant that this new release prevents duplex printing.
It was a joke. No version of Photoshop can duplex unless you have print drivers smart enough to split a single image. Photoshop works with single page documents. I have never tried using duplexing options for that reason. Your best option would be to make a multi paged PDF.
The reason Photoshop doesn’t do multi page documents is because it is NOT a desktop publishing program.
Would you ask why Acrobat can’t make an animated GIF! 🙂
No version of Photoshop can duplex unless you have print drivers smart enough to split a single image.
You know, I was a little over emotional. You’re right, I was an idiot. I was thinking more about the issue of "content management".
Taking your post, and that of Mark, it seems his point is: yeah, well, there are things the program does and things it doesn’t do. Which, IMO, is valid…
I don’t personally care about a dollar bill. I’m thinking more about the position of content managment and its implications.
Lyons claimed the law stated only greyscale images were legal. Here’s the copy from the website in his earlier post:
"U.S. Currency The Counterfeit Detection Act of 1992, Public Law 102-550, in Section 411 of Title 31 of the Code of Federal Regulations, permits color illustrations of U.S. currency provided: the illustration is of a size less than three-fourths or more than one and one-half, in linear dimension, of each part of the item illustrated;
the illustration is one-sided; and
all negatives, plates, positives, digitized storage medium, graphic files, magnetic medium, optical storage devices, and any other thing used in the making of the illustration that contain an image of the illustration or any part thereof are destroyed and/or deleted or erased after their final use."
It does permit color reproduction, it seems.
Perhaps I will have to return to PS6. Not that I am into counterfeiting, I just can’t stomach censorship.
Strikes me as an absolutely pointless feature.. Already, numerous easy workarounds have been demonstrated. I wonder if this feature is installed in international versions as well, and if it only applies to dollars and pounds.. Again, pointless.
If this is a US gov measure (to me it sounds like a such), they should consider making their bills harder to copy, not try to control every computer on earth…
The real reason is they know that with the new activation technology in CS you’ll never be able to pirate their program again . So people will actually have to buy it. They know that the pirates Will go to any means to get "free" programs so this is protection for their dealers. Well it was beater than some of the others! LOL I scanned a $20 and a $1 and opened and saved ok. But…… I cannot even copy to clipboard and paste in from the link on the $20 in this thread. So it also scans memory. Explains the s-l-o-w performance issues. It’s not only looking at files – it’s scanning the clipboard as well. Next we’ll have implants to monitor thoughts. Total BS.
I am just curious as to HOW Photoshop CS "knows" that an image contains a replication of a dollar bill or pound note.
Is it using OCR to look for certain words or pattern-matching the US Seal? This technology may extend beyond cash — has anyone experimented with scans of other "official" documents such as passports and bonds?
if(height/width ratio == possible_height_width) if(color model == probable color model) if(color at this point is a probable color) do terribly long test
I just tried this at home with a one, five, ten, previous twenty and a new twenty. All but the new twenty scanned, saved, and reopened in CS but the new twenty would not even scan into CS. I don’t have the Euro from my office but my guess is it will not scan into CS, either. So it seems that CS recognizes something in the colorful new currency that isn’t in the old
So it seems that CS recognizes something in the colorful new currency that isn’t in the old
As I mentioned in an earlier post, there are markers (patterns, if you will) it’s looking for. They have to fit pattern, size, and be within a certain tolerance of proportions. My guess is that once those criteria evaluated, positives go to color depth. Since it’s only on the new U.S. bills, there must be a ranking system of sorts. Something like:
Look for the "20" (x,y coords), look at the pattern around it within "x" radius. If found, find eagle, look within x radius, if found look for that funky green thing and look within x radius, if found look for watermark saying "twenty", if found look for something in the border that’s unique.
When certain pixel patterns are found, flag the image, check color depth. If all true, don’t open.
There are statistical means, similar to better handwriting recognition, for determining if an image is a likely match. It’s relatively fast–after all, handwriting recognition works in nearly real-time.
The issue is to accurately distinguish a twenty from a parody with a picture of your uncle Earl in it. No, I take that back, the issue is whether it’s a good idea at all.
It was discussed in a few computer journals when the whole thing was proposed a few years ago. It works if everybody supports it, but it’s ineffectual if even one program doesn’t. It’s like [De]Activation, in that it does compromise our freedom, without stopping the bad guys.
I opened the image on the link in this thread in another application and saved it in .psd format. CS then opened it. So what gives on that? Makes no sense.
Wouldn’t there need to be a database somewhere that stores this criteria? I wonder what else is in there, I know for a fact the Euro 10 is. It’s pretty silly, though, as you can even use Imageready to open these.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, there are markers (patterns, if you
will) it’s looking for. They have to fit pattern, size, and be within a certain tolerance of proportions. My guess is that once those criteria evaluated, positives go to color depth. Since it’s only on the new U.S. bills, there must be a ranking system of sorts.
Interesting behaviour indeed.. I wonder if they’ll start to add code to future releases to prevent people from scanning/opening files containing scanned credit cards, postal orders and anything else that could potentially be used for fraud..
The interesting thing is this: What makes counterfeiting really possible is the failure of human beings to adequately verify the currency bills they receive. They don’t even verify obvious things, much less elaborate watermarking or other technologies that only a computer program can recognize. So even if you can’t scan a real bill, you can produce a much cruder reproduction that can still be passed to other human beings. Photoshop Big Brother is thus plugging the wrong hole. If you need a computer to recognize a bill as genuine using a particular anticounterfeiting technique, what use is that technique in the real world? Real people are not copies of Photoshop, and they cannot and will not use such techniques to check bills.
Remember, some successful counterfeit bills have not even been printed on both sides!
— Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.
Wouldn’t there need to be a database somewhere that stores this criteria?
No, not really. It could be an algorithm. Look, the digimarc plug-in scans a document for information in specific fields of the document. There’s no reason that they couldn’t create one just like that, only one that does some sort of recognition of internal data, and then "embed" that plug-in into the main code, or a dll or something.
No, I take that back, the issue is whether it’s a good idea at all.
Agreed.
I would think that the fact that the program doesn’t allow you to counterfeit money is less of a deal breaker than the specter of [De]Activation.
Also agree. However, what are the drivers, and where does it stop? For lack of a better way to describe it, if you have the "stones" to implement ANY level of "content control", you, to a certain extent are saying "like it or lump it".
So, not as much of a deal breaker as activation, but disconcerting, nonetheless.
There’s a database–not what you’d expect, though. It’s not a big pile of pictures that are compared, it’s a pile of numbers representing the statistical analysis of other images, which isn’t very big at all.
Who knows what’s next?
Well, as bills are changed, the database will grow. And everybody will forget that it’s there.
Wow shame on you Adobe, I will be returning this product for a full refund and will get no further "Updates" from you. PS7 here i come.
LOL, unless you bought the program directly from ADOBE. Their "Authorized Vendors" hard copy, written policies forbid a cash return, only a replacement of the same crappy program that you object to. While this is a direct violation of Adobe’s 30 day return policy, silence is the best defense.
I, personally, don’t object to "forbidding" the software to process a copy of current US currency, I think it is a good idea.
What I do object to, and the same feelings hold for activation, are these types of actions occurring with no prior notification. All it would have taken would have been a simple statement, included with the software, of imposed limitations.
Currently, I have developed a deep distrust for the Adobe business philosophy and really doubt that I will ever purchase another Adobe product. Their projection of arrogance is just over welling.
For Adobe, that may not mean much to the bottom line of their balance sheet, so far, my purchases have only been a little over $2,000. Go ahead, tick off about a 1,000 more and we will make a difference!
Oh, and by the way don’t forget that old business rule that one unhappy customer will cost from 8 to 10 lost sales by word of mouth dissatisfaction.
I will NEVER buy any product with Copy protection or Product Activation, or whatever you want to call it. I really hate entering those moronic serial #’s when I install the program, as it’s just one more thing for me to keep track of in case I have to reinstall… So ya know what? I write them on the CDROM where everyone can see…
Charge a decent, fair price for your products and maybe, just maybe people will buy them instead of pirating them. But bend your customer base over the desk, and they’ll return the favor… cf. RIAA & MPAA v. American Public
Analyzing my images for any content, and refusing to operate based upon that content is a crock of shit. Pure and simple. Leave the counterfeit detection to the Secret Service. You need to focus on your core values – image manipulation.
How do you know it only scans for banknotes? Maybe it scans your private pictures for known terrorists and sends the information during the next product activation? Next thing you know a SWAT team raids your house because your uncle Pete, who has a long beard, looks like a terrorist to CS.
What if you have pictures of chemical elements needed to make biological weapons on your computer? Does PS CS know you’re a chemistry student?
Go ahead, make tinfoil hat jokes all you like (and yes it is a bit paranoid), but do you know what else is hiding under its hood? Banknotes can’t be the only reason CS is so slow.
Staggering, CS does in truth do some strange things – I scanned a picture of George Bush, tried to open the file again and CS threw up an error about infringement of Disney’s copyright of Micky Mouse! Big brother’s little brother is all around us…
I scanned a picture of George Bush, tried to open the file again and CS threw up an error about infringement of Disney’s copyright of Micky Mouse
Something is wrong with your PS CS. You need to thrash your preferences (see FAQ)
The message should read: Photoshop does not open Mad Cowboy images.
Adobe is (voluntarily) trying to help US Department of Agriculture and Homeland Security to contain latest terrorist threat. At this point they dont know who is responsible for mad cow disease cows going mad (probably Canada) but we cant take any chances can we?
For those of you curious about how this algorithm detects a banknote, here is a slide of a short talk that I gave to our local research group soon after I discovered the "EURion Constellation" two years ago while experimenting with a new Xerox color photocopier and a 10 euro note:
The algorithm looks in the blue channel of a color image for little circles and most likely examines the distance distribution encountered. I have discovered a small constellation of just five circles (a bit like Orion with the belt starts merged) that will be rejected by a Xerox color photocopier installed next door from here as a banknote. Black on white circles do not work.
These little yellow, green or orange 1 mm large circles have been on European banknotes for many years. I found them on German marks, British pounds and the euro notes. In the US, they showed up only very recently on the new 20$ bill. On some notes like the euro, the circles are blatantly obvious, whereas on others the artists carefully integrated them into their design. On the 20 pound note, they appear as "notes" in an unlikely short music score, in the old German 50 mark note, they are neatly embedded into the background pattern, and in the new 20 dollar bill, they are used as the 0 of all the yellow 20 number printed across the note. The constellation are probably detected by the fact that the squares of the distances of the circles are integer multiples of the smallest one.
I have later been told that this scheme was invented by Omron and that the circle patter also encodes the issuing bank.
As what Markus said, it can be detected by the small circles on the back side. But how can it detect the one on the front side (there is no small circles in the front side)? The technology is not this, it is different. I can’t really find that kind of small circles in the front side of the 20 bill.
I just scanned the front and back of a new 20 dollar bill at 600 DPI and imported into Photoshop Elements 2.0 with no problem… interesting that the more money you spend with Adobe, the more crippled their products get (Activations, Image Screening) It was my understanding that CS and Elements were essentially the same with items crippled in the user interface, so I’m surprised this worked.
I just ordered CS from the Adobe store and I will try the same experiment with that when I get my copy on Friday. Now I’m really second guessing my decision to "upgrade"… after activation and now this, what other secret restrictions has Adobe built into their flagship product? I guess I have 30 days to decide if it’s going back.
Try to open this heavily edited part of the original 20$ pic that was posted in the beginning. Format is now png, as if this is converted to jpg with "0" compression it can be loaded (or even rotated 90 degrees).
I think the worst part is that this isnt an advertised features Adobe have mislead, if not downright lied to everyone.
Imagine if it stopped you using
1) The McDonalds Golden Arches 2) The Mircosoft logo 3) An photo of the president 4) The Nike swish 5)…
All things which could arguabley be copyright and their representation easily recognised. Imagine how much money Adobe could make if it charged $ 5 million to lock a logo/image unless the appropriate adobe supplied plugin is used. Disgraceful :/ .
I will NEVER buy any product with Copy protection or Product Activation, or whatever you want to call it. I really hate entering those moronic serial #’s when I install the program, as it’s just one more thing for me to keep track of in case I have to reinstall… So ya know what? I write them on the CDROM where everyone can see…
Charge a decent, fair price for your products and maybe, just maybe people will buy them instead of pirating them. But bend your customer base over the desk, and they’ll return the favor… cf. RIAA & MPAA v. American Public
Analyzing my images for any content, and refusing to operate based upon that content is a crock of shit. Pure and simple. Leave the counterfeit detection to the Secret Service. You need to focus on your core values – image manipulation.
Thank goodness for Open Source and The GIMP…
Isn’t it easier to read what’s below that what is above. Wrap to 70 characters.
Just an open note to the geniuses @ Adobe:
I will NEVER buy any product with Copy protection or Product Activation, or whatever you want to call it. I really hate entering those moronic serial #’s when I install the program, as it’s just one more thing for me to keep track of in case I have to reinstall… So ya know what? I write them on the CDROM where everyone can see…
Charge a decent, fair price for your products and maybe, just maybe people will buy them instead of pirating them. But bend your customer base over the desk, and they’ll return the favor… cf. RIAA & MPAA v. American Public
Analyzing my images for any content, and refusing to operate based upon that content is a crock of shit. Pure and simple. Leave the counterfeit detection to the Secret Service. You need to focus on your core values – image manipulation.
For those of you curious about how this algorithm detects a banknote, here is a slide of a short talk that I gave to our local research group soon after I discovered the "EURion Constellation" two years ago while experimenting with a new Xerox color photocopier and a 10 euro note:
The algorithm looks in the blue channel of a color image for little circles and most likely examines the distance distribution encountered. I have discovered a small constellation of just five circles (a bit like Orion with the belt starts merged) that will be rejected by a Xerox color photocopier installed next door from here as a banknote. Black on white circles do not work.
These little yellow, green or orange 1 mm large circles have been on European banknotes for many years. I found them on German marks, British pounds and the euro notes. In the US, they showed up only very recently on the new 20$ bill. On some notes like the euro, the circles are blatantly obvious, whereas on others the artists carefully integrated them into their design. On the 20 pound note, they appear as "notes" in an unlikely short music score, in the old German 50 mark note, they are neatly embedded into the background pattern, and in the new 20 dollar bill, they are used as the 0 of all the yellow 20 number printed across the note. The constellation are probably detected by the fact that the squares of the distances of the circles are integer multiples of the smallest one.
I have later been told that this scheme was invented by Omron and that the circle patter also encodes the issuing bank.
Word wrap at 70 characters below.
How it works:
For those of you curious about how this algorithm detects a banknote, here is a slide of a short talk that I gave to our local research group soon after I discovered the "EURion Constellation" two years ago while experimenting with a new Xerox color photocopier and a 10 euro note:
The algorithm looks in the blue channel of a color image for little circles and most likely examines the distance distribution encountered. I have discovered a small constellation of just five circles (a bit like Orion with the belt starts merged) that will be rejected by a Xerox color photocopier installed next door from here as a banknote. Black on white circles do not work.
These little yellow, green or orange 1 mm large circles have been on European banknotes for many years. I found them on German marks, British pounds and the euro notes. In the US, they showed up only very recently on the new 20$ bill. On some notes like the euro, the circles are blatantly obvious, whereas on others the artists carefully integrated them into their design. On the 20 pound note, they appear as "notes" in an unlikely short music score, in the old German 50 mark note, they are neatly embedded into the background pattern, and in the new 20 dollar bill, they are used as the 0 of all the yellow 20 number printed across the note. The constellation are probably detected by the fact that the squares of the distances of the circles are integer multiples of the smallest one.
I have later been told that this scheme was invented by Omron and that the circle patter also encodes the issuing bank.
I, personally, don’t object to "forbidding" the software to process a copy of current US currency, I think it is a good idea.
How so? What if you need an image of a $20 for a DVD presentation? Or some other non-printcentric application? AFAIK there is absolutely nothing illegal about using a digital image of currency – the illegality begins when you try to print the currency.
I think many of us are very concerned about this issue, and we’d like to know exactly what Photoshop is doing, why this "feature" was added, how to turn it off, and what other snooping Photoshop is performing to our files behind our backs and without our consent.
I, personally, don’t object to "forbidding" the software to process a copy of current US currency, I think it is a good idea.
Those of us int he design business would tend to disagree. http://www.comstock.com/web/ComstockMainframe.asp?7758.73064 994812 Here is a list of images from a major stock photography supplier of currency. Images of currency are a mainstay for many designers. Adobe has just blatantly, and with prejudice, whether with or without collusion of the US Gov’t, censored artistic expression.
Today on the Dutch TV News was stated that the amount of false Euro bills have increased rapidly. Also its quality has apparently been improved significantly, as UV Light devices in some cases are not capable in identifying the false from real notes anymore. As a result the Dutch National Bank has announced that there are 15 hidden marks on the note which are highly kept secret. To "fight" the ongoing increasing falsification, they will disclose one of those 15 marks to give retailers etc a possibility to spot those false notes.
This means besides the known symbols/drawings on the note there are hidden undisclosed items proving the note is a real one. It could be the case that the new US bills use the same concept. PSCS, having the bulit-in information hidden in the code, most problably scans and identifies the mark(s) and refuses to open/save.
Interesting, isn’t it, that no one from Adobe has commented on this? Adobe owes all of their users an explanation of exactly what Photoshope CS censors. Chris Cox has said the reason CS is always trying to access the internet is because of Version Cue…I’m not so sure I believe that any more. It’s also obvious that this censorship is one of the reasons CS is so slow. This, along with activation, has lowered my trust in Adobe to a new low.
I suspect it’d be fairly trivial to implement for the new 20 – just look for one edge of the not-quite-hexagons in the background, find the corners, work to the diamond shape at the center of the hexagon, use that to get a scale, and look for the same size area at the appropriate angle and distance.
Consider that it’s not required that the techniques they use in designing the bills and working with software vendors be 100% proof against counterfeiting (because that’d be impossible), just that it make it more difficult for counterfeiters. The harder it is, the fewer people who do it and the fewer of those who do an effective job of it.
That may or may not be true for US currency, but it certainly is not the case for UK currency, where the rules apply even to TV images…..
Len, that is true for US Currency… the US Treasury has a site with the rules.. it has been posted in this thread. You may reproduce images of currency as long as your image is >150% or <75% of the actual size. You may also reproduce an image that is 100% as long as it is black and white.
It is interesting that Adobe implemented controls dissallowing legal use of US currency, but allows illegal editing of currencies of other nations whose laws strictly prohibit any reproduction….
I once made a xerox copy of a dollar and tried it in a change machine…it worked…I got back four xerox quarters.
On a serious note, this is a disturbing thing to learn. I have just gotten the Creative Suite and have reformatted my work machine and was preparing to install CS. I am the webmaster for a financial institution and am about to start a redesign of their web site. I have a reason to use images of currency in a context that is not counterfeiting. I see no other choice but to reinstall version 7 again which means I might as well have put the money spent into the trash can.
The New US bills do have UV items and a ton of anti-counterfeiting features, many publicised, others not. The US $20 bill is currently undergoing its third iteration in a decade due to these anti-counterfeiting devices not working.
The answer is simple, all they have to do is implant a chip in our foreheads and go to a cashless society.
So… as far as I can tell, there are several workarounds, making the implementation of this feature, uhm… ineffective.
That said, I can’t see Adobe doing a thing about it. They can keep their cake and eat it too. They abide by whatever rules whoever put them in place by keeping the algorithm in, and, for those who really need to use images of currency, they can get around it, one way or another.
This, with the activation rationale, makes me take pause – "Okay, we agree that the features don’t do what they should do… but you’re keeping them in anyway, even though it add hoops for users to jump through, and company expense to support?"
It is interesting that Adobe implemented controls dissallowing legal use of US currency, but allows illegal editing of currencies of other nations whose laws strictly prohibit any reproduction….
Discussions about this started a few years ago, and the feature is quietly being added to software and hardware. It just seemed inevitable.
It is not just software. I used to work for Canon USA. One of the ‘features’ they built into the CLC550 and newer color laser copiers was anti-counterfeiting technology. As the copier scanned the image, it checked for patterns and if certain patterns were recognised that were common in currency, certificates, etc., the copier changed the hue of the output to a really irritating lime greenish cast that could not be mistaken for real currency, etc.
This was not due to government regulations ‘requiring’ this technology, but it was due to gov’t ‘encouragement’. We had many cases where our techns were interrogated, or required to testify after mom & pop counterfeiting operations were discovered.
A would guess that Adobe’s implementation of this technology into PSCS is more due to ‘ecncouragement’ rather than outright legislation, at least I have not heard of any legislation or laws on this matter yet. One thing is clear, the manner in which it was implemented amounts to censorship more than it defeats counterfeiting, as it took a mere matter of hours for the professionals here to figure out work-arounds. It was ill-thought out at best, even though counterfeiting is a major crime, and not victimless, as many might argue. Too bad Adobe hadn’t thought this one all the way through!
They abide by whatever rules whoever put them in place by keeping
They garner Most-Favored-Software status from the powers that be–in private and public sectors. If you don’t have it, no thank you; if you do, welcome, friend.
Id like like to go along entirely with this post. We deserve an explaination::
" Interesting, isn’t it, that no one from Adobe has commented on this? Adobe owes all of their users an explanation of exactly what Photoshope CS censors. Chris Cox has said the reason CS is always trying to access the internet is because of Version Cue…I’m not so sure I believe that any more. It’s also obvious that this censorship is one of the reasons CS is so slow. This, along with activation, has lowered my trust in Adobe to a new low.
In Adobe’s defense, they have allowed this thread to persist, without censorship, and without shutting it down. I imagine shortly we will have the official skew on the situation.
"Digimarc is the leading provider of patented digital watermarking technologies that allow imperceptible digital code to be embedded in media content regardless of whether the content is distributed in analog or digital format. Using its proprietary technology, Digimarc has created MediaBridge a fundamentally new way to access the Internet. MediaBridge allows printed materials, such as magazine advertisements, to become direct portals to relevant destinations on the Internet. The digital data embedded in the printed materials creates a bridge between traditional and online media through image capture devices like PC cameras and scanners that are connected to personal computers and other Internet-enabled digital devices. Digimarc also provides anti-counterfeiting solutions to the worlds leading central banks and image commerce technologies to leading stock photo agencies and major corporations. For more information about Digimarc, please visit our Web site at http://www.digimarc.com."
I say 5-8 hours before Adobe comes in and explains itself.
They do have to call their lawyers/Marketing/damage control.
Then they have a meeting to come up with a reasonable anwser that will makes us all feel warm and fusy on why we should take this too just like activation.
Hey keeps us honest doesnt it… Activation I mean. Oh now we are all possible Counterfeiters. But hey Adobe is looking out for us. Just in case we would want to Counterfeit. Doesnt that make you just feel all warm all over?
I say 5-8 hours before Adobe comes in and explains itself.
I wonder what they’re serving at the meetings.
Still, they are currently censoring only money, and it’ll take a generation or more before the niceness-only patches are added. There’s plenty of room to say that you shouldn’t get all paranoid about not being able to do something you shouldn’t be doing, anyway.
It’s like airport security. There aren’t enough meeting-donuts in the world for anybody to come up with an answer that’ll make everybody happy.
My bet is that Adobe Corporate will NEVER make a public statement about this issue.
I did an (what I consider) fairly extensive search on google and found not one reference to the anti-counterfeiting technology and Adobe, other than that Digimark reference I posted, and another reference on Microsloth website regarding anti-piracy and counterfeiting, and how Adone is part of the business group involved in the implementation of the technology. that was basically geared towards software counterfeiting, however.
I tried this one and same.. CS won’t open it. sheesh.. its noteven a 1:1 picture of a single note. this is insane. Nobody and certainly not a software I pay for should have any say on what sort of image I am allowed to open or not. I’m not amused.
The painter Robert Harnett was arrested in the nineteeth century for including realistic pictures of currency in his paintings. If my memory serves me correctly they confiscated his entire body of work as evidence.
In response to those that keep bringing up phantom internet connections. It has already been stated that if you check the IP# it is just the local host (127.0.0.1), your own computer!!!
As for how it does work there are many ways it could work. My guess would be simple pattern recognition. I have a few 3rdparty applications that I use to scan my entire system for duplicate image files. They will find duplicates that are flipped, rotated (90° increments), enlarged or slightly modified.
My bet is that Adobe Corporate will NEVER make a public statement about this issue.
I agree. Why should they?
Activation to keep honest people honest. Can’t edit a $20 for your client to twart counterfeiters.
It’s also illegal to deface US Currency, but you don’t see strip clubs banning the use of 20’s (booo… sorry, couldn’t resist that).
But the fact is, I’m trying to reconcile my desires to think of Adobe as a friendly company with Mac roots, and the recent posturing of the company indicating a "too bad, so sad" attitude that reeks of Redmond.
Oh, and by the way, anyone who knows anything about counterfeiting, knows that it begins and ends with the paper, over which the US Treasury has extreme control (thank you Learning Channel). If you can get the paper, or something good enough to fool people, do you think someone’s going to be stopped by the silly algorithm? They’re resourceful.
So, this boils back down to keeping honest people honest I guess. I’m sure the target market for photoshop (professional designers) are happy to have a watchdog group make sure they’re "above board" in all of their editing jobs.
On the upside, I had one time created "dollar coupons" and modified dollar bills to give to my wife. They had things like "One Free Back Rub", "One Free Foot Massage", etc. on them – it was a gift. Now I have a legitimate reason not to give those to her anymore <grin>.
Oh.My.God. How very ‘Orwellian’. So now it’s more than just currency? Can the thought police be far behind?
I find it appalling that corperate America can impede the very freedoms our counrty was built upon with this kind of censorship.
So now everyone who needs a scan of money for a creative project must be some sort of criminal?
It’s not even that it’s money, or Disney, or whatever/whomever…it’s the fact that a corporation that makes software has the balls to censor it’s users.
My wive just call me complaining about Adobe’s stock performance recently. From this thred, I can find the answer and will not upgrade V7 to CS anytime soon.
It would be one thing if this was a free program and the programmers wanted to "do their part" to prevent their FREE program from being used for illegal activities. However to charge someone for the privilege of screwing them with censorship is just wrong.
By not publishing this everyone should be entitled to a refund on the basis of fraud.
It’s not often I’d need to scan or photomanipulate any currency for a project, but I can envision situations where I’d want to, if only for little things like Tony has spoken of…goofy gifts or just playing around doing something ::a-hem:: artsy.
And as a thinking, rational adult, there is NO WAY I’d ever seriously attempt to create counterfeit notes. Just too risky for my blood.
If I need to scan and manipulate bank notes, I will, and I’ll be able to, and I’ll not worry about consequences, because I’ll be doing nothing to get investigated or arrested for. Earlier versions of Photoshop won’t be removed from my hard drive any time soon.
I empathize, and would also be ranting if I hadn’t thought about it a couple of years ago. It’s phony security–like the little old man at the door in Wal-Mart–that just makes some feel better, without solving anything.
If they censor baknotes what else will they censor in the future or will patch to censor?
Do you really expect any corporation to say "Well, we’ve talked it over, and we’ve decided to support counterfeiting, and promise never to check for unauthorized use of copyrighted material in the future." There’s no way to put a positive spin on this… the other side is "Well, we decided to leave it as-is, and see if any adjustments are necessary at a later date."
r_harvey. so you do agree that they can censor what image you can edit in thier software?. Gald to know that.
So in your statement all software that doesnt have the same checks are guilty of allowing counterfiting and copyright violation becouse they dont check like good old Adobe. OFF WITH THIER HEADS!!!
do you agree that they can censor what image you can edit in their software?
Yes.
It needs to say it on the outside of the box before you purchase it, though, so that we can decide if our principles and privacy are more important to us than the use of the product.
It needs to say it on the outside of the box before you purchase it,
though, so that we can decide if our principles and privacy are more important to us than the use of the product.
Why should they give a list ? They dont disclose the EULA thell you open the box, (And cant return it to where you bought it) why should the list be any diffrent ?
A warning label. Like the one on the back of MS products that warns you that you’ll need to go through mandatory activation hoops if you want to continue to use the product you just paid too much to buy. Come to think of it, does PSCS have an activation warning label?
Officially from Adobe: Oh, yes, you mean THAT code. Well, yes, we put it in Photoshop CS. Now can everyone please calm down. Did you find any other things we officially might or might not have put in PS but failed to document?
I work in a design studio in the UK, where very recently we purchased Photoshop CS. We have in the past used scans of banknotes which were then modified, distorted, company logos where added, faces or text were changed etc etc. The end result was then incorporated into a design, such as a press advert, a flyer, or just an illustration in a document. No way would the end result EVER stand a chance of passing for cash. ALL the end results were quite legal by they way
Now Adobe does this?
In one move they limit the scope and creativity of their customers i.e. designers and artists, while all the time boasting the new features expanding what you can do.
Well this one wasn’t on the fact sheet.
And like others says here, how far have they gone in this version, and how far will they go in the future?
Some people here say they are just ensuring we stay on the straight and narrow.
Thats not their job.
Their job is to give artists and designers tools to create. 99.99% of people scanning banknotes are doing it for legitimate reasons e.g art or design purposes, or just kids messing around to put their moms or dogs face on it instead. If they limit what you can scan they are LIMITING CREATIVITY!!! They are supposed to be enhancing it, thank you!
So back to reinstalling PS7, removing PS8, and the boss is now considering calling the Adobe UK reseller he paid money to for a refund.
Maybe we will even swap to Corel Photopaint 11, We use Corel Draw anyway.
Good move Adobe. Discourage customer upgrades, or encourage people to use Gimp, Corel Photopaint, or whatever.
If it’s a government requirement, what a crock, because they should likely have to apply it to every version by every software designer already out there I would think, for it to be effective at all. Maybe they are under the mistaken impression that folks upgrade everything as soon as it is available.
If it is Adobe, with government encouragement, well, another crock. The law is about individuals or groups who counterfeit money, and the government or law enforcement are the ones who should be doing the job, not Adobe.
And really, no comparison to armed guards at airports and the like is valid. Very different reason and scenario. For one thing, it is perfectly evident and in the open.
I understand PaintShopPro 8 has also done this? Does any one know how long ago? Any other software?
So when they decide that you cannot edit/open pictures of roses its ok by you?
If they say so on the box, fine. And if you decide that life for you isn’t a bed of roses, fine. Like activation, if you agree to the terms, and they require you to wear bunny slippers in order to use the product… well, get your slippers, or look elsewhere. Demand full-disclosure before you give them any money, though.
But I certainly wouldn’t buy it. Of course, I wouldn’t have bought PSCS for other reasons before this.
Never having found the need to copy any money for a project yet, I still I find this type of over eager censorship irresponsible for Adobe. It is not just a matter of currency but also a matter of privacy. This type of overreaction to counterfeiting, piracy or protection is way over the top. Does Adobe actually think this will stop anyone that wants to engage in the criminal act of counterfeiting? With so many image-editing programs available they will just go elsewhere. In the mean time the core Adobe software user gets hit with a slower product. I thought that the whole reason for upgrades where to enhance usability not to inhibit it.
I have the CS upgrade for Photoshop and have been considering the upgrade for Illustrator and In-Design. Thats not going to happen, I will not get the upgrades now and I will make sure my machines are off line prior to any work in Photoshop CS. As a matter of fact I will probably just use version7 for most of my work. I agree with nagash, we need to stop purchasing these CS upgrades or any other Adobe product until this egregious behavior stops. Adobe you do owe us an explanation!
I think many of us are very concerned about this issue, and we’d like to know exactly what Photoshop is doing, why this "feature" was added, how to turn it off, and what other snooping Photoshop is performing to our files behind our backs and without our consent.
It’s time for full disclosure.
I’m interested to know if this anti-counterfeiting measure has to be applied to ALL graphics software originating in the US since I find it odd that Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop must have this included at the request of the US government whereas programs such as Thumbs Plus and countless other imaging software do not.
Also, if Jasc has mentioned this and has been open about then why has Adobe gone in the opposite direction and kept completely silent?
I’m not a thief looking to launch a large counterfeiting operation <grin>, but I am concerned that when stuff like this is included within the program without it being mention – what else could be included within the software that we don’t know about?
now i have tried to open up a 10 pounds note, PS CS wont open it~!! the format is in jpeg and size is 434×225 pixels, but ImageReady can open it…. check out for urself at <http://home.pchome.com.tw/web/mows/10pnote.jpg>
Isn’t it easier to read what’s below that what is above. Wrap to 70 characters.
Yes, but then again the problem is that these posts are generated from the Adobe forum web site which doesn’t have the facility to word wrap text and thus any posters will have problems properly formatting their posts so that us Usenet folk can read and reply properly.
I do wish that they (Adobe) would install decent forum software on their web site so that it had proper word wrapping and quoting facilities, however.
After a bit of fiddling, all you need to trigger the message on the $20 is the eagle and the green-manilla-green background. All the text, the picture of Edison, the Great Seal, etc., is superfluous, which leads me to believe that the "detection" algorithm is pretty bone-headed.
This link many not work <http://www.ukdragon.com/b3ta/untitled-2.psd> from here, but it’s a "blank" $20 — someone with the time or inclination could probably now add stuff to make an innocent picture that confuses PS into thinking it’s money…
This is so discouraging. I had tremendous respect for the Adobe software engineers who have created this great product, but now even that is tainted: didn’t they have to willingly participate in order to bring us this undocumented feature? Didn’t they have to maintain the secrecy around it? Aren’t they just as responsible as the corporate officers who already lost my respect by requiring activation?
Like others I fear what Adobe will decide to censor next. It appears that fascism has been reborn, here in Amerika, in the very cradle of capitalism which – you would think – would violently reject anything like censorship which will undoubtably lead to lost profits. In theory, gains in anti-piracy from activation should offset the losses of people (like me) who are avoiding the upgrade for that very reason. But losses from censorship – which could not possibly have any corresponding gains in profit – should have been more than enough justification for corporate to squash this.
Unbelievable that someone would be pro censorship.
I’m not. I’m not even pro-bunny slipper. It’s their program; they make their own choices about what to do with it. I told you that I’ve made my decision about what I want to do with it, too.
I downloaded Ed’s Liang’s 72dpi JPG file of a 10 pound note and tried it myself–sure enough, 7.0 will open it, but CS throws up the warning screen and refuses to open it. I then opened the file in 7.0 and tried deleting the oval area that distinctly contains the 5-point "Orion" pattern in yellow. Either that pattern is hidden elsewhere in the image, or CS looks for other identifying patterns, because it would not open it.
Next, I reopened the image in 7.0 and applied polar coordinate distortion to the entire image–as you can imagine, it becomes a swirling mess. So distorted, in fact, that CS will open it! But here’s the kicker–while I had it open in CS, I applied polar to rectangular distortion to get it back to its original dimensions. There was some residual blurriness, but it was obviously the banknote image Ed posted. CS even let me save it. But it sure wouldn’t reopen it!
I also tried copying Ed’s image from the web page and pasting it into a new CS document. When I went File\New, CS generated a blank window with the correct aspect ratio, but when I tried to paste the image into the window it threw up the warning again.
The implications of this new technology are ominous and insidious. I’ve generally been a great defender of Adobe’s actions, but this is simply beyond defense. What else will it refuse to open? What will cause it silently to send a message to some shadowy Echelon-based server? I hate to say it, but this is going to blow up in Adobe’s face. Their continued silence on the matter is all the more damning.
Photographic or other likenesses of other United States obligations and securities and foreign currencies are permissible for any non-fraudulent purpose, provided the items are reproduced in black and white and are less than three-quarters or greater than one-and-one-half times the size, in linear dimension, of any part of the original item being reproduced. Negatives and plates used in making the likenesses must be destroyed after their use for the purpose for which they were made. This policy permits the use of currency reproductions in commercial advertisements, provided they conform to the size and color restrictions.
The point is, if this (scanning every incoming image/clipboard) is what’s been slowing down cs and we’ve (the regulars, hi /.ers!) been here trying to find workarounds for it all along, it’s a crying shame.
Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?
Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?
Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?
I gotta pee! Suzy punched me! I’m hungry! I don’t wanna go see grandma!
What ???? "including all copies, upgrades, updates and prior versions, and "
So If I buy PSCS, I cant get rid of it, and keep my Version 7 ???
From EULA
4.4 No Transfer. YOU MAY NOT RENT, LEASE, SELL, SUBLICENSE, ASSIGN OR TRANSFER YOUR RIGHTS IN THE SOFTWARE, OR AUTHORIZE ANY PORTION OF THE SOFTWARE TO BE COPIED ONTO ANOTHER INDIVIDUAL OR LEGAL ENTITY’S COMPUTER EXCEPT AS MAY BE PERMITTED HEREIN. You may, however, transfer all your rights to use the Software to another individual or legal entity provided that: (a) you also transfer (i) this agreement, (ii) the serial number(s), the Software and all other software or hardware bundled, packaged or pre-installed with the Software, including all copies, upgrades, updates and prior versions, and (iii) all copies of font software converted into other formats to such individual or entity; (b) you retain no upgrades, updates or copies, including backups and copies stored on a computer; and (c) the receiving party accepts the terms and conditions of this agreement and any other terms and conditions under which you purchased a valid license to the Software. NOTWITHSTANDING THE FOREGOING, YOU MAY NOT TRANSFER EDUCATION, PRE-RELEASE, OR NOT FOR RESALE COPIES OF THE SOFTWARE. Prior to a transfer Adobe may require that you and the receiving party confirm in writing your compliance with this agreement, provide Adobe with information about yourselves, and register as end-users of the Software. Allow 4-6 weeks to transfer. Please visit <http://www.adobe.com/support/main.html> or contact Adobe’s Customer Support Department for more information.
We have all put up with this activation stuff, when the people who purchase legal copies of PS CS (like me) have to do this product activation and the people that pirate PS can get a "workaround" for the activation that is ment for them. And now Adobe is pulling this on its customers that pay $600 for their software! If I want to edit/photocopy banknotes for legal purposes, I should be able to! Now Adobe has made this issue personal and I don’t think they want that right now.
Well, it’s one thing to say you want to implement activation because you’re sick of seeing your code stolen; it’s quite another to prevent you from doing legitimate work because… of what? What was the reason?
They let us sit here and conjure up Spy v. Spy scenarios.
In the end, without a defensible explanation from Adobe, this is little more than 1950’s Moscow (at least the American perception of what it was like in Moscow in the 50’s).
On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 21:10:06 +0000, Martyn Drake wrote:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 13:35:35 GMT, joevan wrote:
Isn’t it easier to read what’s below that what is above. Wrap to 70 characters.
Yes, but then again the problem is that these posts are generated from the Adobe forum web site which doesn’t have the facility to word wrap text and thus any posters will have problems properly formatting their posts so that us Usenet folk can read and reply properly. I do wish that they (Adobe) would install decent forum software on their web site so that it had proper word wrapping and quoting facilities, however.
Regards,
Martyn
Thanks for the explanation. I was starting to think no one here cared. I certainly agree that the forum should get some better software. It hurts my eyes sometimes when I have to scan such long lines, and I do learn from reading some of these posts. joevan
In the end, without a defensible explanation from Adobe, this is little more than 1950’s Moscow (at least the American perception of what it was like in Moscow in the 50’s).
The explanation is exactly what you think it is. What’s the benefit to them, in having them confirm it? It won’t change. They’ll have to clear it through legal, anyway.
Eroding the rights of the American people has been a steady theme since before the Bill of Rights was even established. It goes on today. Consider this. In Portland, we have a system of taxation that allows a group of homeowners to tax themselves for local improvements, called a LID, Local Improvement District. A majority of property owners in that district must approve it. Sounds ok, until this happens. One of the property owners is building a multistory apartment/condo complex. Say 100 units. The 100 units counts as 100 votes, and if the rest of the property owners do not even amount to 100 units you lose. Automatically. Yet, a single corporation owns the property. So, Now, if the developer wants streets or whatever, all the people have to pay, even if they voted as a bloc not to accept the improvements. The actual tax rate is based on frontage, so you can see that a developer can get what he wants without paying fair share, as his frontage is minimal, and with off street parking breaks etc, and without having to convince the others to vote with him.
OK! Which one of you paid for your Adobe upgrade with funny money?! Other than that, its extremely hard to believe and disturbing that Adobe would become a party, not to censorship, but an abridgement to the Freedom of Speech. We’re rather persnickity about that here in the U.S.- even these days. I believe that thinking people understand the laws and protection against counterfiting, and thus how one’s intent fits into it. Adobe should know better to ever becoming an arbitrer of such intent. Even mild mannered librarians have enough character to oppose being put into such a position as arbiters of intent of those checking out books from the public library (i.e. provisions of Patriot Act).
The explanation is exactly what you think it is. What’s the benefit to them, in having them confirm it? It won’t change. They’ll have to clear it through legal, anyway.
Yeah, I know, I’m just doing my part to get this up to 300 posts – if Adobe doesn’t reply by then, you know they won’t. I would think a little marketing rhetoric would have been demonstrated by now though.
davethebrush, no. that’s not the point. of course it’s easy to circumvent. there are 3 points as i see them. 1) cs has been crippled by slowing the programs by having it scan everything going into cs. 2) adobe shouldn’t be censoring it’s users this way and 3) if it’s required by gov’t regulation that this is included, it should check on output, not on input.
Nagash, Let them know you have permission, you already do. though they wont let you 🙂 I just tried to open a B&W version of the $20, and No Go.
"Photographic or other likenesses of other United States obligations and securities and foreign currencies are permissible for any non-fraudulent purpose, provided the items are reproduced in black and white and are less than three-quarters or greater than one-and-one-half times the size, in linear dimension, of any part of the original item being reproduced. Negatives and plates used in making the likenesses must be destroyed after their use for the purpose for which they were made. This policy permits the use of currency reproductions in commercial advertisements, provided they conform to the size and color restrictions. "
I am against adobe limiting what you can do, see my post at No. 178
I was getting at a workaround. Basically open or scan in imageready, then press the swap to PS button at the bottom of the toolbar – end of problem.
They should not look at what you input, and if they look at anything at all, and i dont believe it’s Adobes place to do so, it should be at the finished thing. And this is not me finding a workaround myself, this one I found on another forum and it’s spreading. It’s an oversight on Adobes part. They put this ‘prevent banknote scanning/opening’ feature is Photoshop CS but neglected to include it into Imageready CS – watch out for those update patches though!
Or maybe i miss your point. I have been reading other complaint too: slow working, ram gobbling, magic wand bugs etc etc. Maybe PS7 will be installed a month after i removed it from the studios PCs :O
Tee-hee! Did you forget to use your little indoor voice?
Has anyone tried creating an exact replication of the "orion" dot pattern on another image?
That’s a red herring. It might be one test, but it’s not the test. See the picture linked to in #224 <http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?14@@.2ccf3d27/224> for an example that doesn’t look anything like money. There are some tests against known values, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a picture of somebody peeking around a light green shower curtain could pass.
A couple of questions: Assuming you do get permission to use banknote images will Adobe provide a method to open the image? I was going to suggest someone try to implement the rules for using a banknote image i.e. add the word SAMPLE as required, but there is a catch how do you open the image to add the sample text to make the image usable in the first place (ok I know – use Image Ready, but I guess after spotting this loophole that will be plugged in the next release) Could this effectively render the software unfit for its purpose i.e. image manipulation – allowing for a refund under the trades description legalisation (UK)
Also does this apply to the MAC version? they have escaped the activation curse so far.
It could be a good way for celebrities keeping their photos out of the papers just hold up a $20 note 🙂 Serious though point will including a banknote as a small part of a an image activate the copy protection?
I came up with a fix for this…. more of a work around really, but it seems to baffle the recognization process… just open the photo in imageready (not what you think! just read on!) or ps7, and add a layer of black over the entire image. save, close, and reopen in PSCS. it worked for me anyway. When you start work, just hide that layer, then when you’re done, re-enable the layer and save. I know it’s still very cumbersome, but less so then others I’ve seen where you lose quality just to open it….
hmm… yes david… I just noticed that. I got rid of the layer, and saved as psd, and it opens just fine. looks like perhaps it only accesses this when you convert a document from one format to another (specifically to psd format… which is photoshops native format.
I scanned a can of sardines in, and superimposed a picture of an eagle over it… added a few stars, and it no longer opens in PSCS… what a load of CRAP… you know what they say about four letter words I guess….
"Photographic or other likenesses of other United States obligations and securities and foreign currencies are permissible…provided the items are reproduced in black and white and are less than three-quarters"
This is misleading. You have quoted the section covering securities and foreign currency. U.S. currency may indeed be reproduced in color, as long as it conforms to the size and other restrictions noted on the Secret Service website.
For those of you who still harbor some reserve of goodwill towards Adobe as some kind of benign "corporate good citizen", I would have to suggest that that view is naive. I worked for the company for a long time, and in recent years have noted with growing dismay that it has become just another heartless corporation. It should come as no shock that money rules all in any company, but things once were different at Adobe. Sadly, that has changed.
Adobe the nice nice mom-and-pop software company run by professorial engineer-philanthropists is a thing of the past. It was a slow change, and I don’t know exactly when the change occurred – maybe when Chuck & John really left and the current crop of gutless, bumbling beancounters took over.
Is Adobe an evil company? No, it’s just a company. No soul, no scruples – just the bottom line. It’ no more evil than Microsoft, Wal-Mart, MacDonalds or R.J. Reynolds – but no better, either. Adobe wil do what it thinks will make them more profit, customers be damned. I wonder what’s next….
Can’t scan in Mickey Mouse or some other Disney "property"? Can’t output a PDF or web page that’s critical of the company?
Hey, anything’s possible, and this sneaky behavior should shatter anyone’s remaining trust that the company is looking out for your interests. No offense intended to my friends who work there – almost all of you are great folks. But whoever is responsible for this PSCS censorship should be ashamed of themselves.
Listen up, child. Equating a software restriction (that may or may not be required by gov’t regulation) to the horrors of the Nazis and the Holocost IS offensive to MANY people. I suggest you go read Good Night Moon and go to bed.
Actually, this isn’t entirely true. You will only get the currency error message if you save the scan in certain formats. I saved a scanned new 20 (front), resized to 640px wide, and saved in every format photoshop will allow. Here’s the breakdown:
I don’t see any correlations between the formats that do and don’t work, but I don’t know the full background behind all the image types. It’s notable that both .jpg and .gif, the most common formats used online are restricted, but then .png is not. So make your own conclusions, or wait for adobe to make an official statement. I didn’t have time to read all the threads on this, so forgive me if someone else has already posted this info…
As someone at Adobe who was involved in the decision to include counterfeit deterrence in Photoshop CS, let me finally provide you with a response to all of these concerns and questions. Sorry for the delay!:
Photoshop CS does indeed include a counterfeit deterrence system (CDS) to prevent the illegal duplication of banknotes. The CDS was created by a consortium of central banks from around the world. We, along with other hardware and software manufacturers, have included CDS in our products at their request to address the threat posed by the use of digital technologies in the counterfeiting of banknotes. There are other software products from other companies that already use this same technology. There are also hardware products that use the same or similar technology. For example, most color copiers sold today will not allow you to copy currency.
As digital imaging technology advances, becoming more broadly available and user friendly, the old barriers to currency reproduction are becoming less effective. The unscrupulous are taking advantage of the functionality that is being provided to the vast majority of honest users for the purposes of counterfeiting currency. In the US and around the world, counterfeiting through digital means is increasing exponentially, and retailers and the general public–including our own customers–are at risk.
Counterfeit currency is essentially a hot potato. Whoever holds it last, loses. The person who loses isn’t necessarily the counterfeiter. There’s no government body in place to "reimburse" people who, through no fault of their own, get paid with currency that turns out to be counterfeit. In our implementation of CDS, we’ve worked very hard to balance the need to protect these unsuspecting victims of counterfeiting along with the need to continue to provide a product that efficiently does what honest customers need it to do.
There appear to be several major concerns and objections repeated throughout this message thread, so I’ll try to address each one individually:
1. Performance: CDS does not cause any noticeable slowdown in Photoshop performance. During most operations performed in Photoshop, CDS is not used at all. When it is used, the performance impact often is just a fraction of a second.
2. Legal use of notes: It is true that the current implementation of CDS will prevent you from scanning in your own banknotes even if your usage intent is entirely within legal boundaries. Regulations for using banknote images vary by country. It is the responsibility of the central bank in each country to provide images that can be used within the legal guidelines of that country. In other words, if you want to legally reproduce images of the new $20US bills on a Web site or in a marketing brochure, you can contact the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing for legal images that can be opened and manipulated in Photoshop CS. (You can visit them at www.moneyfactory.com.) Similar solutions should be available in other countries. If you find that your central bank is not providing adequate support to permit legal uses of their banknote images, then you should let them know.
3. Adobe’s intentions: Please be assured that this implementation of CDS is not a step down the road towards Adobe becoming "Big Brother." We know that one of the reasons people love Photoshop is because it’s an incredibly flexible tool that can be used for so many different things. That’s also one of the reasons we at Adobe enjoy working on new versions. Finding ways to prevent you from doing things in Photoshop really doesn’t interest us! Moreover, the CDS is not Adobe technology, but was provided by the central banks, who would have no reason to want to restrict anything other than bank notes. Counterfeiting is really a special case in which we could see how our own technology advances were making it easier to commit crimes and we were asked to implement a solution that would have minimal impact on honest customers. Yes, there is some impact, in that you need to contact your central bank for images, but our hope is that it’s not a huge inconvenience for that small group of customers who do need to reproduce these images in their graphic design work. It also provides the central banks with an opportunity to better educate customers on exactly what is and isn’t legal usage.
Of course, CDS in Photoshop CS is essentially a 1.0 implementation of a feature, analogous to the state of the layers palette in Photoshop 3.0. We realize that there may be room for improvement, particularly if there are corner usage cases that weren’t taken into account in our current designs. We do want to hear about your concerns, and we definitely want to hear if there’s a specific problem that this implementation has created for you. As with any Photoshop feature, we depend on hearing from customers so that we can make continual improvements release after release.
Just think, in about two and a half hours, this will be listed under Older Stuff on Slashdot, yet here, nothing has changed. So much for solving every problem in 22-minutes with two commerical breaks; TV is a harsh teacher.
Message to Kevin Conor: My concern is not that the CDS is incorporated, but that Adobe was not up front about the "feature" and what ever else may be in PS that Adobe still hasn’t told us about. Do what ever you feel you must or should. JUST TELL us about it.
So Kevin, what happens when Disney comes to you and says, "You put in the CDS for the bankers, now put in this stuff that will stop people from using Disney images"? Or John Ashcroft comes to visit and says "You put in the banknote code to stop counterfeiters, now I want you to put this in that will stop all those damn liberals from putting my head on Britney Spears body". This is the slipperiest of slopes Adobe has started down and it will eventually kill the company because you won’t be able to resist the momentum you’ve started. It’s shameful.
Kevin Connor’s post notwithstanding, Adobe’s implementation of this "feature" is something that affects me as a photo-illustrator who has used images of U.S. currency legally and in the past. It’s another case of putting in controls that will hamper legitimate users and have little deterrence to those who really want to counterfeit.For the determined counterfeiter, PS 4,5,6 or 7 would be more than adequate for the task. This seems like an idea that might have good intentions, but does have profound unintended consequences.
Why AREN’T you yelling at the messenger? The only way things will change, and the only way Adobe will stop pulling secretive stunts like this is if enough people yell loudly enough. Who knows what other nasty surprises are lurking in CS? Adobe isn’t saying and has proved they can’t be trusted to tell us.
Because he’s the messenger, not some all-powerful, anti-counterfeiting overloard. Complain as you did before you associated a name with your complaint, but don’t heap the blame on him.
Who knows what other nasty surprises are lurking in CS?
I used to jump on every new release as soon as I could. It was like Christmas, experimenting learning all of the new features.
Now, I wait for at least the .01 release. It’s not Christmas anymore, but it certainly isn’t the Nightmare Before Christmas, that new releases have become in the last few years.
We need a Patch all right: a Patch that will remove this ridiculous obstruction which, as we now know, is easily circumvented by the most amateur of forgers and will just be a source of irritation to bona fide artists and designers everywhere.
It was a bad, and silly, idea to incorporate CDS into Photoshop in the first place.
As a Jew, I am quite familiar with that work. And I find using it in this coversation flat out offensive.
Fwiw, my wife is jewish, and so are my three children. I don’t want to stray too far off from topic, but in reality, as a former trade unionist, I considered being offended, but decided against it <grin>.
Nagash – we had a guy here who used the handle cheesefood; haven’t seen him in months, but in general, he acted like the class rabble rouser. As a result, he was treated as such. I like him – heck I had dinner with him once, but he wasn’t all that popular. But he didn’t really care (it seems).
So…. if from time to time people give you schtuff from your posts, you might do well to consider that we only know about you what you post. Caveat Emptor… so-to-speak.
You can simply stretch an image 200% anamorphically in a different app (like MS-Paint for example) then scale it back down in PS if you want. Pretty easy work around, IMO.
Adobe you have mislead honest customers who bought your product without being informed of such a important change especially in those designers who work in the financial sector. You tried to slip this under the carpet and hoped noone would listen im sure whilst taking a hefty fee from the bankers.
How much they give you eh ? 1 million dollars, maybe 10 million it doesnt matter the damage is done now.
Photoshop was a tool for artisitic expression, not anymore. Every new release your customers will be afraid you will be taking another right away from them. The fact that this was done with zero USER consultation just shows your arrogance and disdain for your customers.
Hey i guess adobe finally sold out.
I will NOT be buying another adobe product EVER unless this decision is reversed.
In regards to Kevin’s post, everything that was written makes sense to me. I don’t agree with what they’ve done, but I can certainly see how a company would be in their situation. "When in doubt, err on the side of conservatism".
Kevin addressed most of the salient point, and quite well, and I don’t know that there’s a lot more to be said. I can’t help but wonder though…
Did the central banks just "ask" and Adobe complied, or were there "fees" involved, perhaps in the form of the central banks funding the incorporation of the software into Photoshop – and of course, it’s subesquent testing, and quality engineering tests, and all the other service that are required to adequately implement these things.
I don’t know for a fact, but I can’t imagine Adobe implementing something like this without some level of reimbursement since, after all, it doesn’t protect Adobe directly, it’s more of a "community service" in as much as it’s helping "keep our streets safer", not necessarily with direct benefit to Adobe.
But does that mean that if another industry group approached Adobe, and decided that there was too much darn Tom Foolery going on with certain images, that Adobe would comply <whispering> if the funding for such a service were high enough?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m only posing the quesiton out of genuine curiosity.
You know, if you could develop your Copyright Protection software, by using an algorithm, it might be worth quite a bit to you if you were able to convince Adobe and Jasc to incorporate it. It might be able to generate millions for a big company like Disney in added royalties – they might be willing to pay 1.4 million to get it done. If it were do-able, that is.
Okay class, Conspiracy Theory 101 is over – sorry.
The fact that this was done with zero USER consultation
Why would they consult with potential criminals before implementing something to stop them from becoming real criminals? Would you expect them to ask any potential criminals if they liked Activation, before adding it?
Edit: Wow, that’s pretty hardball for me in this thread. I guess I’ll let it stand, and just feel bad about doing it.
Why would they consult with potential criminals before implementing something to stop them from becoming real criminals? Would you expect them to ask any potential criminals if they liked Activation, before adding it?
How about they talk to their customers and find out who needs to legitimately use/scan/modify images of bank notes. As has been repeatedly stated in this thread many people particulary in the financial sector require this functionality.
The implementation of the feature is patently ham fisted with the work arounds available the only person it hurts is the legitimate user.
Your suggesting that the only people that needs to use/modify/scan images of bank notes are criminals. I suggest that you stop trying to troll this thread its not working.
Your inference is that just because a feature might be used by a criminal that feature is justly removed. Well why not remove all photo editting tools because Paedophiles might use them? The argument is illogical and absurd.
Just about anything and everything CAN "be used for criminal purposes" if someone is intent on doing so: you can probably commit murder with wet noodles if you put your mind to it.
Putting this sort of restriction into software will do NOTHING to prevent currency forging by the determined.
If the first line was "First they came after men but I wasn’t a man" would you have been offended. I feel your answer in this case would be no, I know mine would be. In the United States we have many rights, the right to not be offended isn’t one of them regardless of what people may believe. You do have the right not to listen though.
I am truly sorry you were offended, or feel that you need to be, but that is something you need to deal with. I think you have completely misinterpreted the message in that text. It isn’t stating as much what did happen as what could happen. The message is that much stronger because it contains historical fact. It puts everyone in the shoes of someone (not necessarily a anyone specific, but anyone that has been persecuted for their beliefs, sex, race, etc… and makes them realize how easily it could be them). It is far better to learn from the mistakes of the past then to relive them. If some good can come from those few powerful words all the better.
Maybe they should have said… "First they came for the counterfeiters but I wasn’t a counterfeiter"?
Oh but wait… We wouldn’t want to offend any counterfeiters!
What concerns me, is that Adobe could of complied with and supported anti-counterfiet protocols without affecting the legitimate user. For instance we know and largly understand why some printers wont print such currency, the checks could easily have gone into the printing phase and even only been implemented if the device being used is of sufficient quality to produce fakes.
The above is reasonable and consistent However it appears the shortsighted people at Adobe would rather show off some fancy technology and get a nice backhander from Mr & Mrs Banks than use any commen sense.
OT:: regarding that very powerful poem, I wasnt offended at all its far better to remember solomnly reflect and draw upon the wisdom of those who have gone before than think of it as only history.
I can empathize with the giant software maker. As a little developer, I certainly wouldn’t try to get away with anything like not allowing my software to edit things I don’t like. As a customer, I certainly wouldn’t by anything that restricted my rights–and potentially made the software less reliable. There are several sides… Adobe just has to decide whose side they’re on.
The only logical conclusion from your assertion is that Photoshop shouldnt exist.
I don’t think that’s a fair conclusion to draw from just my statements. I think my attitude looks odd to you, because as a customer, I’m reluctant surrender any freedom at all.
I have never been very keen on the idea of activation. Many programs which use it screw up other things on your system.
I’ve never liked my PS7 (and other Adobe apps) trying to access the web. Why? Thankfully I use a firewall.
I was honestly ready to ignore those gripes and upgrade (finally got the money budgeted for this year). I figured Adobe was a trustworthy company which I admired. Quite frankly that has been shot down in flames.
I just heard about the counterfeit flag today. Does PS do things other than put up a warning? Do other installed components, such as activation, surreptitiously access the web somewhere outside the PS application? What information is sent? To whom? Does PS send information about other files which don’t trigger an alert message?
What guarantee do I have that Adobe won’t censor anything else in the future. How do I know that my work isn’t being monitored?
If anyone thinks I’m a nut, I’d recommend you do some reading up on government projects such as Echelon. I don’t think Adobe should be doing the government’s job. It should however make a full disclosure, including allowing an independent review of its source code.
I read in other comments that Adobe’s support line was a bit flippant about this issue. I’m planning instead to call to place an order for some upgrades, tie up their line for a while and then when asked for a credit card number politely refuse and explain why. Our customer service reps have to log this type of information, maybe Adobe is the same. I’d like them to know that (at least from me) this might affect their bottom line.
Guess I won’t be buying the following upgrades: Photoshop Illustrator Indesign Acrobat Premiere
These are my personal upgrades, there are more where I work (where I am considered a "decision maker").
I’m also going to contact Macromedia (since they’ve started the same activation ballyhoo) and ask for a position on privacy.
Everyone, I think its fair to remember who owns all rights to this software. In this case it is Adobe. If you are an honest customer, you have been buying a permit to use it.
If this anti-counterfit measure is too much for anyone to stomach – yes, even to the point that you´re so offended you´ll never buy a permit to use any of their software ever again – that´s primarily your loss. You are obviously not a graphics professional and thereby you are really less important to adobe than adobe is to you.
I think a great deal of comments in this thread are far more ridiculous than this anti-feature (which I do NOT endorse or agree with, au contraire I think it is Rather Silly.).
I pride myself at my ability to empathise. I can put myself in the situation of a clerk in a superstore, just around christmas time, who are subject to evil management that imposes on him to reimburse any counterfit money he accepts.
I can empathise with a software maker that uses ‘common sense’ to restrict the use of their software. I could think of situations where I would quite consciously do the same.
With all the easy workarounds demonstrated, how much of a practical problem does this anti-feature really put on anyone?
As I said, its just a silly implementation (it really is), and occational nag. Its a helluva large nag for us forum regulars, but hey, lots of stuff is.
And with that, my friends, I´m signing off in this topic. I sincerely doubt anything new will be brought to light in this matter.
Y´all also must remember that this anti-feature is far from restricted to Adobe.. As many people has testified here. Hence Ian´s Old News alert in the top of this thread.
Unbelievable and disturbing as it is, it has brought back some pleasant memories. In the late 1980s I worked at Barneyscan and we bundled the Knoll brother’s pre-Photoshop image processing software as Barneyscan XP with our scanner. (In hindsight, it would have been a better investment to use our r&d budget to buy the rights to the software rather than build the first desktop 35mm scanner…) At one trade show a guy in an uncomfortable looking suit stopped by and asked a lot of questions about our scanner technology. When we were done, he gave me a business card that identified him as an analyst for the security division of some big bank. When I asked if they did a lot of pre-production work, he said his job was to understand how technology might be used to produce counterfeit documents. I doubt he thought that a counterfeiters workflow would include the scan of a 35mm slide but maybe he went back and warned his bosses about the evil image processing software that was included.
In the early 1990s I did some work for a group of microscopists who had a government contract to find the origin of a particularly good set of counterfeit $100 bills. If, on a scale of 1 to 100, a crayon drawing of a $100 bill is 1 and the real thing is 100, it doesn’t take much more than a quality level of 30 to be able to pass a counterfeit $100 bill. Apparently these bills were closer to a quality level of 90. While the hope was that it was a ‘hobbyist’ with too much time on his/her hands, the big concern that another government was getting ready to flood the world with these extremely good counterfeit bills. The microscopists were looking for particulate matter in the paper or between the paper and ink that might identify a particular region of the world.
An earlier post mentioned that it’s all about the paper. During one of the meetings with the microscopists it was mentioned that the government was considering the use of genetically modified cotton – of which the government would control production. Of course, without a mechanism for instant analysis it would have only provided proof that suspect bills were counterfeit and not helped slow down the distribution.
1) Even in my discussion today with a Secret Service Public Affairs Officer, they admitted that there were legitimate uses this feature would prevent.. Fortuantely for ADOBE they are not a governement agency. If they were, the software would fail the appropriate legal test for censorship which is basically that the gov’t must use the LEAST restrictive alternative available.
2) More importantly, Kevin never even gets near the issue of why ADOBE chose to stick this "feature" in without even so much as a mention of the word "currency" in their help files or knowledge base, much less in the literature, advertising, upgrade feature list, etc.
And since some may wonder whay I spoke to the Secret Service about this. It was so that I could openly post a ZIP file containing the sample of the new $20 note ina form that would generate the "error", along with examples of the error as generated by PSCS and PaintShop Pro 8.
As I posted elsewhere: ————————- Before I go further, after a short discussion with the Secret Service Public Affairs office in Washington, DC, I believe that I am safe in providing the following information.
"The Counterfeit Detection Act of 1992, Public Law 102-550, in Section 411 of Title 31 of the Code of Federal Regulations, permits color illustrations of U.S. currency provided:
1. the illustration is of a size less than three-fourths or more than one and one-half, in linear dimension, of each part of the item illustrated;
2. the illustration is one-sided; and
3. all negatives, plates, positives, digitized storage medium, graphic files, magnetic medium, optical storage devices, and any other thing used in the making of the illustration that contain an image of the illustration or any part thereof are destroyed and/or deleted or erased after their final use."
For those in other nations you may find links to your applicable regulations at <http://www.rulesforuse.org/> Which is also where the PhotoShop CS error takes you automatically to.
If you want to test this out yourself.
I am posting a copy of a US Government currency exemplar published SPECIMEN version of the new 2004 series $20 note, and JPEG images of the PhotoShop CS error message, and the PaintShop Pro 8 error message, for TECHNOLOGY and media informationpurposes ONLY..
ALL and ANY INDIVIDUALS who download this image are responsible for their own actions and agree that they shall use this image ONLY for Adobe Photoshop technology demonstration purposes intended AND that they will destroy the file after it is used to demonstrate said technology. Downloading the file is at your own risk, and I accept no responsibility for your actions, use, or possession of said file or its contents.
Beyond that, I can only say that when I did bring up the issue of how PhotoShop CS was dealing with the image, no-one at the Secret Service seemed surprised..
Wow! There goes any thought of switching back to PS from The GIMP. Adobe, I must say that you have done some great things for the tech community in the past, but this one ‘feature’ has dropped you guys down to the M$ level. Unless there are some major changes in policy in your next version, you’ve lost a customer in me.
Frankly, few here would ever scan currency–evidenced by the fact that almost no one here independently discovered the feature. With the insight of posts like yours and acaf’s, we see that it’s not as much the feature itself, but the lack of disclosure, that bothers people.
This forum is populated by Adobe fans, so this, coming on the heels of Activation and revised upgrade schemes, has shaken the faithful. Just how much many here depend on Adobe products for their livelihoods came into sharp focus, shaking core beliefs, values and loyalties.
There’s still the issue of trust. MS lost mine several years ago and has not gotten it back; Adobe has been much more responsive to customers’ needs and concerns.
Again, I personally think that is a good idea that Photoshop restricts the ability to process currency images. For those who need this ability, I also think that Adobe SHOULD HAVE MADE provision for it. They evidently don’t give a hoot about you!.
What I didn’t read in Kevin’s reply is why Adobe chose NOT to inform their potential and current customers about this limitation. And, if Adobe staff look carefully at this thread, there is one pattern that emergences. "WHY WERE NOT WE TOLD"? This entire discussion would have been minimized if Adobe, either through a public announcement or by information in the sales literature, had simply said "the current version of Photoshop is restricted when copying government’s currencies. As it is, all they have initiated is a deep distrust of their Corporation.
Well, we all feel very strongly about what has been done. A very simple solution! SHOW YOUR DISPLEASURE IN THE MARKET PLACE. If you own a copy of PSCS, attempt to return it for your purchase price. Adobe’s "authorized" suppliers will not do that, of course, but try to do it. If there is too much pressure, perhaps they might consider dropping Adobe products. Secondly, encourage everyone that you know NOT to purchase Adobe products for 6 months. A quarterly "zero or negative" market growth is sure death to the corporation’s management. Reconsider what you actually received for your "up-grade" dollars. Was it worth it?
Comments if this forum are great, but they don’t apply the pressure that is needed to make Adobe listen to its customers. Use your purchasing power to influence them.
….and, just as importantly, what else should we know that we don’t?
This is an excellent example of what we don’t know we don’t know. The hard part of finding out something like this is the huge drop in trust in future dealings with the offending organization.
So far as criminality, I asked a police officer acquaintance about the kind of training they get to spot criminal behqavior. He said that in Poloce 101, they are told that there are three kinds of people in this world:
People who have committed a crime People who are about to commit a crime, and People who are thinking about committing a crime.
With this kind of mindset, the Ashcrofts of the world rise in prominence.
I asked my friend which category he was in. He was not amused!
Come on, it is related to Digimarc WaterMark, it is ready to all software.
EXHIBIT 10.9
COUNTERFEIT DETERRENCE SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT AND LICENSE AGREEMENT
This Counterfeit Deterrence System Development and License Agreement (the "Agreement") is made
Between
DIGIMARC CORPORATION, a corporation incorporated under the laws of Oregon and having its head office at One Centerpointe Drive, Suite 500, Lake Oswego, Oregon. U.S.A. 97035-8615 ( "Digimarc")
[*]
Recitals – ——–
Digimarc has expertise in, and owns extensive intellectual property, including patents, patent applications, copyrights and trade secrets, [*].
[*] possesses or will possess the right to grant licences in respect of intellectual property rights related to the application of such intellectual property to the detection and deterrence of bank note couterfeiting.
Digimarc and [*] have cooperated in the development of means, using such intellectual property, to detect and deter the counterfeiting of bank notes [*].
The CDS is an improvement to Digimarc’s existing copyright protection system for deterring personal computer-based counterfeiting of bank notes.
The CDS has [*]
[*]
[*] In return, [*] will acquire the exclusive right, as more particularly detailed herein, to grant and direct Digimarc to [*] to [*] the CDS [*] and [*].
[*] Omitted pursuant to a confidential treatment request. The material has been filed separately with the Securities and Exchange Commission. [*] is also investing in certain improvements to [*] and a broadening of the deployment of the [*] across the personal computer industry. In return, [*] during the term of the Agreement [*], as more particularly detailed herein.
In consideration of these premises, the covenants set out in this Agreement and other good and valuable consideration, the receipt and adequacy of which are acknowledged by each of the parties, the parties agree as follows:
1. DEFINITIONS AND PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION
1.1 Definitions – Whenever used in this Agreement, the following words and ———– terms shall have the meanings set out below:
"Agreement" means these articles of agreement, including the Schedules, and those documents as specified or referenced in this Agreement as forming part of the Agreement, all as may be amended from time to time;
"Allowable Cost" means a cost of the kind identified in Schedule I;
"Arbitration Agreement" means the Arbitration Agreement dated June 21, 1999, a copy of which is attached as Schedule E;
"[*]" has the meaning assigned to it by clause 5.1;
"[*]" means that technology, if any, from the technology described in Schedule "F" in respect of which from time to time [*] after discussion between the [*] and the [*], [*] offers, and Digimarc accepts in writing, a [*] on the [*] in clause 8.2 to use, design or implement the CDS and all Intellectual Property Rights in that [*];
"Business Day" means a day on which both [*] and Digimarc are open for business at their respective addresses noted above;
"CDS Technology" collectively, means whatever of the [*], the Digimarc Technology and the Project Technology is incorporated into the CDS;
"Confidential Information" means information disclosed during the Term of this Agreement in any form which, if disclosed in tangible form, is labelled "Confidential", "Proprietary" or with a similar legend, or if disclosed orally is information that by its nature would be understood to be confidential to the Discloser;
"Counterfeit Deterrence System" or "CDS" or "System" means a system for [*] that
[*] Omitted pursuant to a confidential treatment request. The material has been filed separately with the Securities and Exchange Commission. includes, without limitation, [*]. The System incorporates means for [*];
"Deliverable" for a [*] means a task to be performed or an item to be delivered by Digimarc to [*], identified in the Statement of Work for [*], and in the case of a Deliverable [*] Digimarc’s obligations to [*] with the Escrow Agent as part of the Technical Information;
"Designated Country" means a country, the [*] of which is designated in writing by [*] effective on the Effective Date, and any additional country as may be designated by [*] in writing to Digimarc from time to time;
"[*]" means those portions of the Project Technology and the Digimarc Technology which relate to [*] of [*] including [*];
"Device" means a [*] for a general purpose [*], or a device [*];
[*] means the [*] of a [*];
"Digimarc Contract Authority" means the President of Digimarc;
"Digimarc Project Manager" means the Project Manager appointed by Digimarc in accordance with the provisions of clause 4.1;
"Digimarc Technology" means:
(a) the technology partially described in Schedule "G" developed or owned by Digimarc prior to [*] to the extent that it forms part of the CDS, (b) all Improvements to the technology described in (a) made by or on behalf of Digimarc other than under this Agreement to the extent that they form part of the CDS, (c) all Improvements to the technology described in (a) made by or on behalf of Digimarc under this Agreement to the extent that they relate to or form part of the CDS, and (d) all Intellectual Property Rights in all such technology and Improvements;
"Digital Watermark" refers to [*] (including [*]) that are [*] from [*] by [*] of [*], which [*] of [*] and yet do not significantly [*] from the aesthetics of the [*] or [*] thereby. Examples include, but are not limited to:
1. generally imperceptible changes to [*] or placement in [*]; 2. [*] of a substrate, where the [*] substantially uniform to human touch; 3. slight localized changes to [*] or [*] of a printed document; 4. slight changes to [*]; or
[*] Omitted pursuant to a confidential treatment request. The material has been filed separately with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 5. [*] of substantially [*];
"Discloser" means a party which has disclosed or otherwise made available its Confidential Information to the other party;
"DLA Contract Authority" means the Contract Authority designated by [*] in writing to Digimarc from time to time;
"DLA Project Manager" means the project manager appointed by the DLA Contract Authority from time to time on notice to the Digimarc Contract Authority who shall also serve as the person primarily responsible to conduct inspections on behalf of [*];
[*];
[*];
[*];
"Effective Date" means [*]; [*];
[*];
[*];
"Escrow Agent" means [*] or any mutually acceptable new custodian appointed pursuant to clause 11.2 or 11.3 of the Escrow Agreement;
"Escrow Agreement" means the agreement in the form attached as Schedule M;
"Escrowed Materials" means any and all materials deposited or to be deposited by Digimarc with the Escrow Agent under this Agreement and the Escrow Agreement including the Technical Information and Improvements pertaining to the CDS Technology which shall include but not be limited to the following:
1. details of the deposit including: full name and version details, number of media items, media type and density, file or archive……..
The only reason they put the currency feature in is that they knew the activation was so easy to get past. They also in their infinite wisdom decided that all who would defeat activation would also be likely to be a counterfeiter. So there you have it – software pirates are counterfeiters – in fact they’re probably terrorists too. In fact they’re responsible for all the evil in the world. So Adobe is just doing their part to save the world. And you thought it was just about money? It’s much more than that. <VBG>
When you get permission from the Federal goverment to scan a 20 dollar bill let us know.
The fact is WE HAVE PERMISSION from the federal gov’t to scan a $20! Adobe needs to get their corporate heads out of their collective asses on this matter! It is permissible to have images of currency as long as they meet guidelines… even the US Treasury website has images of currency posted!
What concerns me about Kevin’s response, which I assume is Adobe’s official stance, is this: he states that the software is designed to prevent us from scannning images of currency, to use images given us by the bank of our particular nation. However, we are CREATIVE types and Adobe is saying to use someone else’s image, not one photographed, etc by ourselves… they are restricting our creative ability.. okay maybe a small point to some, but to me, I use the programs in a creative manner, so this trend is disturbing.
On another note, imagine when you try to open a document in Word and it won’t open because it contains censored words, such as ‘bomb’, ‘terrorist’, etc…
Since the new CS won’t scan money – if you’re using 7 and under does that mean you’re a criminal? I mean it’s possible you could be using it for criminal intent – Same logic they’re using for CS.
Well Who here will take this laying down? Who will not speak out?
We took activation. Im ashamed I bought PSCS but now who knows whats next.
The only reason I can see they put this in is money there is no other logical explanation.
BTW guess who owns rulesforuse.org
Registrant ID:1386191-NSI Registrant Name:EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK Registrant Organization:EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK Registrant Street1:Eurotower Kaiserstrasse 29 Registrant City:FRANKFURT Registrant State/Province:FRANKFURT Registrant Postal Code:160319 Registrant Country:DE Registrant Email:
More importantly it restrict us to copy other nations’ currency, which in fact is not our business to follow that part of the world’s restriction on using currency which; Euro is not a legal tender in US, as an example. P.S. Am I right?
More importantly it restrict us to copy other nations’ currency, which in fact is not our business to follow that part of the world’s restriction on using currency which; Euro is not a legal tender in US, as an example.
The bulk of counterfeiting, from my understanding, occurs with US currency, with the Euro being second due to its strength. The majority occurs off of US shores withUS currency. This technology is not going to thwart these people, as they are pros.
It will to an extent prevent the hobbyist, the dude down the street with a Gateway, pirated Photoshop CE, and a quality printer. These are the same ones that are passing $10 bills in my area at bars, stores, etc. I was wondering why the $10 all of a sudden became very popular… now we know. Adobe prevents scanning of $20’s, the vermin change tactics, as they always will.
One the one hand, counterfeiting does hurt every one of us… as a bartender, it sucks to get a tip in fake money… I lose, no one else. If you get a fake bill as change, you lose! If you attempt to pass it, you are now a criminal, whether you know it is fake or not! At best, you lose that cash and a few days of interrogation by the secret service, at worst, you might be prosecuted.
That said, Adobe’s implementation and attempt to hide this from bonafide users was short-sighted. I for one will not upgrade. We have PS7, which works well. At home I have PS6, and if I find a cheap (legal) PS7, I will upgrade, but not beyond that.
Adobe appeared eager to censor artists and designers to appease the bankers… not even a gov’t mandate or request, simply a corporate decision. So, in my mind, it is not that distant a stretch that they would in the future include other restrictions to ‘copyrigthed’ material for the same reasons.
I do agree that Adobe has the right to build in any ‘feature’ or ‘safeguard’ into their product. As a consumer, I can exercise my right not to purchase.
Yes you are. But how else will you pay for that vacation to Europe next year? Hmmmm…… didn’t I read something about allowing the United Nations to control the internet? It’s started. I went to a site that sell foreign currency for collectors. It had nice scans ( they don’t use CS yet! LOL ) on the site. I opened all of them. So if you’re a 3rd world country you don’t count.
We’re talking about software here and the fact that Adobe has slipped in a little feature to make thwart the scanning of money. FWIW, I agree that users should have been notified right up front that it was there.
But to equate this with the holocaust is just flat out stupid and insult to all those who died because of hatred.
Now, please let’s get back on topic before Len comes and throws us all out here. <g>
What seems to be missing is the AMERICAN entrepreneur spirit. With the outrage that this discussion has created, I am surprised that someone has NOT attempted to become a full blown instant CAPITALIST by suing the DEEP pockets ADOBE and any other organization who might be part of this practice.
This discussion is not just a bunch of wild-eyed speculation–there are real-world implications that go beyond employees of financial institutions. I can forsee some very reasonable situations that would be crippled by the new CDS scheme. Here’s an example:
I am a prepress technician at a printing plant. Suppose I am preparing a document for print that contains a photo of Billy Smith holding the $20 bill he received for his tenth birthday. At what resolution does the CDS system kick in? How do I explain to my customer that I can’t color adjust the photograph of the grinning birthday boy because it shows too much detail of the bill? Even if I were to trundle off to the appropriate authorities to get the legal "dummy" image, how do I then clone it in so I can use the customer’s photograph? If I did not have an earlier version of Photoshop, I would simply not be able to complete the job. This isn’t some paranoid Spy vs. Spy scenario–it’s a very real example of the kind of problems this implementation of CDS poses.
Here’s another example: We output film for our university’s Engineering department so they can burn electronic circuits onto photosensitive media. The files they create in AutoCAD include complex circuits in a variety of shapes, many of which resemble the now-infamous "Orion" pattern (and I’m certain there are many other offending patterns). It is entirely conceivable–in fact, even likely–that one of their designs will flag the CDS system. How do I explain to the engineers that they need to redesign their circuit so it doesn’t run afoul of Photoshop’s pattern recognition algorithms?
I appreciate Kevin Conner’s attempts to respond to our collective concerns–I’m certainly not going to kill the messenger. I’m sure Adobe came under more pressure than they’ll ever admit. But I hope he and the other appropriate folks at Adobe understand that it’s not the hamfisted clumsiness of the CDS technology that has raised so many concerns. Rather, it’s the secretive manner in which the CDS scheme was slipped in that is so disturbing. All faith and goodwill the digital-imaging community has held for Adobe has been permanently tainted. This is a watershed event, the fallout from which will linger for many years. I know there are people from Adobe, the central banks, and the Secret Service monitoring this thread closely. Here’s the message people are trying to send you, expressed as clearly and unambiguously as possible: You blew it. With this one act of betrayal, Adobe has destroyed the trust you spent so many years building among your customers. You should have told us up front that you had crippled the software in ways that will affect many legitimate uses. Instead, you slipped it in surreptitiously, hoping no one would notice. We’re not that stupid, and we resent you acting as though you thought we were. Again, I emphasize: You blew it.
Remember with Kevins statement say is this feature is here to stay. Again they are IMHO assuming EVERYONE that uses PSCS is a potential Software pirate and now a potential counterfiter.
Yes, this is what annoys me big time. Innocent people are being treated as criminals/terrorists/other naughty people.
Without sound nasty to the US citizens (and this isn’t aimed at you guys), it seems that the US government has gone completely nuts and is treating anybody entering the country as potential terrorists.
What is now happening is that us UK folk have to buy visas from October which will cost 67 quid for EACH person entering the US and it will mean queuing up at the American Embassy to get it. All of this will be waived once biometric passports are phased in, but that’s unlikely to happen before 2005 I hear.
Also you don’t see American citizens having to go through all of this sort of treatment to enter our country. All this because the US government seem to think everybody not an American is a terrorist. At least that’s the impression I get from this whole incident.
When I went on honeymoon to New Zealand, we went via Los Angeles using Air Newzealand. It was about one month after the September 11th attacks. Going out wasn’t too bad, but coming home had us emptying all of our luggage and being thoroughly checked, short of taking off all of our clothes – hey, perhaps the answer – you’ve got to be naked when flying, perhaps that’ll cut out any potential bomb/knife threat! 😉
Same thing with this software – presume guilty first and then later do you decide their innocence.
Doesnt that make you fell just all warm and fuzzy all over?
Exactly 🙂
I guess next they will go against the potential copyright infringer. No you cant load Mickey Mouse photo into PSCS .
Its possible and I see why not.
I’m sure if the MPAA and various other organisations had their way..
Oh, and FWIW, I do intend to purchase an upgrade to CS since I already have Paint Shop Pro 8.10 (which I didn’t know had the anti-counterfeiting system incorporated until this whole thread came about) and it’s not going to make any difference to me. I have Photoshop 6 already, but having been using the CS trial for nearly a month (have got to purchase soon!) I find it extremely good despite all of it’s faults. Of course, that’s just my opinion.
I don’t work with banknotes at all for any design purposes, neither am I a counterfeitter/thief, but given what I’ve said above, I am still concerned about how software companies are now presuming that everybody is guilty beforehand (which is what I was trying to say in my post above_.
"this is little more than 1950’s Moscow (at least the American perception of what it was like in Moscow in the 50’s)."
I go to Moscow. It’s a lot freer there at the present time than the US is now.
The activation code is still preventing my legal copy of PSCS from opening on my machine, even though it’s activated. I guess I should have saved my money and downloaded a pirated version instead. At least maybe then I would have been able to use it. But wait, I need to wait until pirated versions are available without the censorship so I can print $600 worth of twenties so I can get my money back for my useless legal version!
Pretty bad when my version is legal and I can’t use it because of the ~e5d141.exe file, but the hackers can, and I can’t make copies of money for legitimate reasons, but the counterfeiters can. (Or at least I wouldn’t be able to if I could get my very expensive program to run).
Kathi (Feeling really bad about not being able to at least try the program everyone is talking about, because I don’t even know how to look for the hacked versions I’m hearing about).
After learning of this new recent feature I can almost bet theat adobe has thought of and played with disabling OLDER versions of their software once you Activated/Installed a new version.
I would be surprised if they implemented this in the future.
Ok Folks, lets all take a deep breath and count to 10. I also was unhappy with the headaches of activation and am very upset with this latest revelation and concerns of what has yet to be disclosed. However, I for one refuse to celebrate Adobes discomfort and bad press that will surely result. With all of the screaming about censorship and loss of freedom of expression please remember who is footing the bill for the forum platform on which you are participating. I too have used Adobes products professionally for many years and hope to do so for many years to come. I will not throw the baby out with the bath water. I personally could care less about Adobes corporate profile, as long as they continue to produce the tools that I need to feed my family and my muse. Some of the comments expressed here border on hysteria, and in my opinion is just an extension of the frustrations still lingering over activation. I ask, would you have been so upset over the counter-counterfeiting scheme if it had not come on the heels of activation? I realize that my position will not be a popular one on this particular thread, so flame away!
please remember who is footing the bill for the forum platform on which you are participating
yes, its us, who pays adobe’s wages by buying their software
for one, next week i have a project coming up involving money…so its back to version 7 for me for that, just glad i heard about it beforehand.
I cant believe Adobe didnt consult their user base or even state it in the upgrade information.
As for the counterfieters they will use cracked PSCS or cracked PS 7 and carry on as if nothing had happened, probably carrying on with forging passports, licenses, stamps, credit cards etc etc.
Thanks again for stiffing the legit users’ practices with pointless and inneffective but very annoying measures to stop illegal practice.
Adobe you need your head examined, if you ask me its them who has thrown the baby out with the bath water.
Ouch, Its starting to get hot! Believe me guys, I have not forgotten the thousands of dollars that I have spent over the years for Adobe products. Just since October I have purchased for my employer 5 full versions of Photoshop CS, 3 upgrades, and an upgrade to the suite. I harbor no particular love or hate for the company that produced this software. However, I do love using their software. To date, there is nothing on the market even close. I respect all of the forum participants and appreciate all of the time that they devote to helping others. I simply stated that I though it was a bit distasteful to bash a company on the very forum that they so generously provide. I personally have learned more from these forums than all of the books I have purchased or workshops that I have attended combined.
I personally have learned more from these forums than all of the books I have purchased or workshops that I have attended combined.
Agreed. A lot of very bright people spend a lot on software, learn it well, expect the software to continue to work for them, and come here to share experiences. It’s a great learning experience.
Frankly, I’m apalled. This is the thin tip of a VERY ugly wedge.
The fact that I can’t make use of the image of currency may not affect me on a daily basis, but as an artist, if I want to use that imagery to make a statement, or as a designer if I need to use it as part of an ad capaign, then I see no reason why I shouldn’t be able to.
Adobe has done the unthinkable; by building in censorship it has paved the way for more of the same in other programs from other vendors. Apparently, it’s now OK to curtail our activities based upon what we might do or think of doing.
It’s not far to extrapolate the possibility of having our text documents censored for content (or even reported to the "authorities" via the internet) or the images we view censored in similar ways.
There should be a massive lawsuit – this cannot be allowed to set a quiet precedent. I for one will not be upgrading any further; I will not be a part of bankrolling this kind of behaviour.
Kathi (Feeling really bad about not being able to at least try the program everyone is talking about, because I don’t even know how to look for the hacked versions I’m hearing about).
You can do a search on google for "photoshop cs crack" and get about 20 places to D/L it from – 100% free. In fact I bet it’s faster than the 1-800 activation line. I’ve even had emails from Ebay members trying to sell me illegal version of all Adobe products – because I bid on another Adobe new in box product. You can even get activations for PS7 and the update to 7.01. The only thing you can’t get is how to scan a $20. But the day is young.
I ask, would you have been so upset over the counter-counterfeiting scheme if it had not come on the heels of activation? I realize that my position will not be a popular one on this particular thread, so flame away!
Absolutely, because while I have reservations about activation, especially in the manner that it could affect professional photographers that are ‘in the feild’ and not able to access an internet connection, to me it is a minor issue. My XP requires activation, and as long as it incurs as little trouble on my system and requires no extra hoops for me to jump through, it is fine. I have had to undergo the ordeal that Intuit requires in order to activate QuickBooks Pro… trust me, Adobe made it easy!
Censoring the files that we, as professionals, may work with however, is another situation altogether. The silence on Adobe’s part, in my opinion, was also a mistep. Their willingness to participate in this aggressive approach to censorship, ie. scanning all images that you attempt to open without prior disclosure is also, in my book unethical. Will they eventually censor ‘copyrighted’ images?
This is a far more grievous offense than activation.
I suspect its Adobe trying to stay cleaner than clean and avoiding any liability in some 1/2 baked lawsuit that may crop up one day in the US.
But I think Adobe should at least looked to see if the various issuing banks were even capable of supplying notes which could be reproduced before they implemented it. Cant see any information on my country’s bank, and their notes are affected, even legitmate reproductions are as well, so go figure that out Adobe.
Well done for giving people yet another reason not to upgrade.
PS I also think these forums are a valuable resource, Phil, and theres no disrepect from me here, but Adobe dont seem to be playing the same game with user consultation.
Well, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page here.
First and foremost, according to Adobe, the remedy is to get your images from an approved source (the Central Bank, I think). That is the (somone’s) current policy for proper use of images of U.S. Currency, again, according to Kevin.
So, I’m not sure how workable that is, but it appears that where Adobe is concerned, if you follow the rules, there is no problem.
So on the one hand it might not be fair to lump "crippling us" with disclosure, or the act of implementing censorship. I don’t know much about it, but if there are rules in place, and specific remedies, then they are enforcing someone’s policy.
It is unclear to me, the relationship of the Central Bank, and it’s rules, with the Federal Government here in the US. So until that’s hashed out, I’m not sure just how much attention "the rules" themselves should get.
Moreover however, I think the theme of this thread is one of censorship and slipstream.
Kevin says they don’t want to limit our ability to use photoshop. That’s a sound point. The fact is, with activation and currency censorship, the impact on the user base, for those that "follow the rules", is, really, minimal.
I don’t know that "disclosure" would have really made a damn bit of difference. We’d still cry "Censorship".
So, it’s not clear that there’s much Adobe, or we, can do about the evolution of photoshop. Adobe is apparently very focused on theives, especially with this release – sign of the times? Who can say for sure.
One thing is for sure – the issue of "precedence" is looming over the user base. The trend for Adobe to be involved in big brother activities, at whatever level, is disturbing.
———- And Bob Levine – the poem wasn’t about the Holocaust – it was about those who watched, bit by bit, the movement set in motion; and if it were, what you want is for it to be used, over and over again, so that those atrocities stay in the forefront of our minds. I’m Armenian, and Hitler said at one point, "After all, who remembers the massacre of the Armenians?"
Don’t mean to debate it, rather just offering a differnt view of the same data. ———-
What is difficult to understand about this issue? Adobe has not made it impossible to work with imagery of currency, they have just made it difficult to scan your own copies. If you need an image of currency "you can contact the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing for legal images that can be opened and manipulated in Photoshop CS. (You can visit them at www.moneyfactory.com.)" I’ll admit that their error message should include this information but as Kevin said, this is v1.0 and issues that are brought up will be ironed out. Given the vitriol this topic has garnered Kevin was a lot nicer than I would have been. You’ll likely get a more timely response if you drop the attitude and "Slashbot" mentality and just state your case.
One, what if I don’t WANT their canned image, what if I have a creative idea that includes an image of currency? I cannot, using CS, easily edit and save this image! I can think of many images were the canned image would not work. Photoshop is an application geared towards CREATIVE types, so excuse me if I have a few creative ideas that their canned image will NOT work with! The uses that I would intend are all legal, and allowed under their rules.
Another point is, how many other hidden ‘features’ are now included, and will be included, all for our ‘own good’?
I’ve been reflecting on Kevin Conner’s statements, which seem to be the official Adobe corporate stance( Kevin Connor 1/8/04 6:33pm </cgi-bin/webx?14/269> ). I find particularly troubling his comment that, "Moreover, the CDS is not Adobe technology, but was provided by the central banks, who would have no reason to want to restrict anything other than bank notes."
If it’s not Adobe technology, then what the hell is it doing in Adobe’s flagship software? And if shadowy forces compelled Adobe to include this technology, why the hell didn’t they test it more thoroughly in real-world situations, or at least warn users that there may be unforeseen issues? I don’t buy my production software from "the central banks," any more than I would consult with Adobe about monetary policy. It’s somewhat disingenuous to say on the one hand that Adobe doesn’t want to restrict what users do with their software, but on the other hand to say to users who find they can’t do their jobs with the software, "Hey, it’s not our fault–we didn’t write it!" Sorry, but that doesn’t wash. If it’s going in your flagship product, which many thousands of users rely on to do their jobs, you’d damned well best make certain it works. And in this case, it doesn’t. It’s a half-baked, poorly conceived hack that’s been made even worse by the thunderous corporate silence.
In closing, I want to emphasize that this is not a personal attack on Mr. Conner. He has the unenviable task of trying to placate an increasingly infuriated user base, and Adobe corporate has surely provided him with a very rigid script from which to read. I’m certain the blame for this situation goes somewhat higher in Adobe’s management chain. I also suspect that there are more agencies involved than just "the central banks." This has John Ashcroft’s malodorous scent all over it.
"you can contact the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing for legal images that can be opened and manipulated in Photoshop CS. (You can visit them at www.moneyfactory.com.)"
yes, perhaps if your intending to use dollars or are in the US…did Adobe bother to provide information about other currency affected..?
No, and after a quick search there is no information on the Bank of Englands site about obtaining a copy of a note that will work, niether have i found any information so far on the few of the 12 or so banks that print the euro.
This isnt paranoia here, this is me asking what consideration has adobe given their international customer base about something that restricts their capability to legally produce work. Its not like using money in images has never been heard of before.
"I cannot, using CS, easily edit and save this image!"
Bull. I just took the image supplied by the website Kevin directed you to and had no problem manipulating it to my heart’s content. I saved out a .psd and reopened it in PSCS just fine.
"Another point is, how many other hidden ‘features’ are now included, and will be included, all for our ‘own good’?"
This isn’t a point, it’s a red herring. I think your tinfoil hat is on too tight.
What about a photograph of somoene holding lots of money in their hands? (maybe your aunt won the lottery and you took a picture to remember the occastion), dont tell me thats easily reproduceable with a canned stock photo.
As has been said, Photoshop is a creative application if someone wants to scan a picture of a crumpled and partially torn 20$ for a montage then why shouldnt they be able to?
"did Adobe bother to provide information about other currency affected..?"
Adobe provided nothing at all. An Adobe emplooyee stepped in and tried to explain things as best he could and in fact he did answer your question.
"Regulations for using banknote images vary by country. It is the responsibility of the central bank in each country to provide images that can be used within the legal guidelines of that country. In other words, if you want to legally reproduce images of the new $20US bills on a Web site or in a marketing brochure, you can contact the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing for legal images that can be opened and manipulated in Photoshop CS. (You can visit them at www.moneyfactory.com.) Similar solutions should be available in other countries. If you find that your central bank is not providing adequate support to permit legal uses of their banknote images, then you should let them know."
"I personally have learned more from these forums than all of the books I have purchased or workshops that I have attended combined."
And let’s not ever forget that the reason Adobe has these forums it to save money by having us do tech support for each other, so they don’t have to pay people to do it. Based on their customer service (an oxymoron if I’ve ever seen one), I’m grateful for support from people who actually know what they’re talking about.
"So, it’s not clear that there’s much Adobe, or we, can do about the evolution of photoshop. Adobe is apparently very focused on theives, especially with this release – sign of the times? Who can say for sure."
There is much we can do about the evolution of Photoshop. We can stop buying it and tell everyone we know to stop buying it. Spread the word of what Adobe has done far and wide. Word of mouth is a powerful tool. It’s clear to me that Adobe has turned the corner into corporate paranoia. They are more concerned with restricting (despite what Kevin Connor, who I assume is the corporate mouthpiece, says to the contrary) the use of Photoshop and their other tools in an effort to maximize profits. We customers are nothing more than a source of revenue. Don’t think for a minute that we’re anything more. Check the post from Bubba Schlubba (#254 in this thread). I believe him. It seems like nearly all companies become paranoid at some point in their growth. It’s evidenced by extreme difficulty in contacting them, disdain for their customers’ intelligence, and hiding what doesn’t need to be hidden, and arrogance that only increases as the company starts its downward slide.
I hope that we’ll see some serious competition for Adobe’s products come out of this mess. The opportunity for a Photoshop-killer has never been more ripe. Corel, are you listening?
it is the responsibility of the central bank in each country to provide images that can be used within the legal guidelines of that country
No, quite the opposite. It is not the responsibility of the central bank to cover up for a badly designed piece of code that affects legal use of software.
Whats next, having to write to disney to retreive watermarked Micky Mouse to paste into a birthday card?
"I cannot, using CS, easily edit and save this image!" Bull. I just took the image supplied by the website Kevin directed you to
I didn’t mean THAT image. I meant an image that I would supply, the canned images would not work with the ideas that I have, such as folding a bill into origami, say… I can do that with a supplied image, but you are too dense to imagine any workflow other than one that you would dictate…
"I didn’t mean THAT image. I meant an image that I would supply, the canned images would not work with the ideas that I have, such as folding a bill into origami, say… I can do that with a supplied image, but you are too dense to imagine any workflow other than one that you would dictate…"
I’ll overlook the childish ad hominem and get to your other point. As orgami is three dimensional art I’m guessing you would take a photograph of it instead. At least, this professional designer would take a photograph of it. Has anyone investigated if this triggers the error message? This apples to the crumpled dollar image as well.
Keep in mind also that this only affects the new $20 bill so far. I can use older $20 bills as well as other denominations.
Whats next, having to write to disney to retreive watermarked Micky Mouse to paste into a birthday card?
Using an image of Mickey in a birthday card would be illegal. However opening an image of Mickey, and using Photoshop to modify it for satire is legal. However, it is not too much of a stretch to imagine these images being ‘protected’ to conform with existing copyright laws. And there is no tin hat involved in this thinking, despite the willing short-sightedness of some naysayers.
At least, this professional designer would take a photograph of it. Has anyone investigated if this triggers the error message? This apples to the crumpled dollar image as well.
I am not about to purchase PS CE and try to find out.
For those who read things into #269 <http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?14@@.2ccf3d27/269>, try reading it again, this time look for what wasn’t said. It was written early-on, probably after only one meeting, before the company stance on some issues had been considered.
I can use older $20 bills as well as other denominations.
So, you’ll stay out of the Restraint of Trade lawsuit, then.
This is an interesting discussion. As an average guy, I don’t counterfeit money nor pirate software (I’ve been in the s/w biz for 12 years).
Honestly, for my skills and uses, PS 7 and PS CS bring nothing really worthwhile to the table over PS 6. The only reason for me to upgrade is to keep up with the Joneses and share files with other PS CS users (I’d do it much more readily if the documentation were done better, in a more useful way).
Intrusive items like the the CS registration/licensing scheme and the enforcement of laws to the detriment of legitimate uses bother me. The next step clearly is copyrighted images and other items, even though some copy uses (satire) are legit. And, these items and the children that these items will beget are intrusive.
For average guys like me, it’s better to stick with the less intrusive version and not upgrade.
1. You’re a software company with mounting competition and a loyal user base.
2. You are accountable to your users, your employees, and "The Street".
3. Someone offers you $4 million to implement a feature in your software
4. You determine, by whatever means, that the affected user base is small, and you can use a portion of that $4 million for some "bottom line enhancing" activity.
5. You know that there may be some user pushback, but there’s $4 million sitting there waiting to fatten your bottom line. Stock price is reasonably stable, but profits are King.
What would you do? Stand up for Freedom, or Sell Out to Wall Street?
I don’t think money was involved, as in bribe, etc… however I can envision that it might be easier to be ‘approved’ for loans if one plays along with the banks, and if one doesn’t, then who knows?
As powerful as Alan Greenspan et al. are, I don’t think they’re the driving force behind this technology. Short of guaranteeing loans or whatever (which would be easy to track down), they wouldn’t have the kind of clout to force Adobe to shoot itself in the foot. I think this is one more ugly outgrowth of the War on Terrorism. I’d be very much surprised if the former governor of Missouri didn’t have at least some input on this project. He and his minions would be quite willing and able to apply the kind of pressure that could make a huge corporation like Adobe jump through fire. All we can do is make certain Adobe feels the flames, and commits to memory the pain they incurred from insulting their user base in this way.
Yes, as was posted a little while ago, I’d have to agree, from Adobe’s perspective, this is primarily about liability. Still, should Adobe have "notified" users in advance that this "feature" was being added to the program? I don’t know the answer to that. It surprises me more that it took this long for someone to discover it. Adobe surely knew there would be protest once it came to light, but as with activation, it probably concluded that the protest would be loud but limited in comparison to the overall user base. What I continue to find interesting about these issues, however, is the somewhat quaint notion that Adobe somehow owed its customers an explanation in advance based on the argument that, in retrospect, we didn’t know ahead of time what we were buying. Kevin provided what I consider to be a reasonable response to those who need to use images of currency in their work. If the alternatives to scanning and using your own samples are not adequate, I’m sorry, but I don’t think that is Adobe’s problem. Clearly, their lawyers must believe the same. Does Adobe look pretty dumb right now. Absolutely. Yet I believe all Adobe "owes" me for my money is software that works. If it doesn’t work, I surely have a right to complain all I want and use another product if need be. But I’m neither a stockholder nor an employee, so that’s where it ends. That makes for a pretty impersonal relationship, and that’s regretable, but I’ve always believed Adobe does a fairly good job of listening to its customers.
Ok I will, But I do take back what I said, I just saw Kevin Conners letter. Sorry, I am just vary weary of Conspiricy Theories 🙂 But looks like this one is legit
What would you do? Stand up for Freedom, or Sell Out to Wall Street?
The issue is that at some point, business and government will require features like this as part of the purchase order. Big contracts are very lucrative, and lower-hassle than onesie-twosie sales.
This whole issue is a little spooky from a Brave New World perspective. But does anyone else get a little nervous hearing the phrase "Central Bank" and finding out that it is in Germany? This reminds me of another apocalyptic classic which involves getting a mark on the forehead.
I don’t wear any tin-foil hats, but I’m troubled by the whole scheme, not just Adobe’s role in it.
Adobe should have been upfront with users and informed them about the new feature either in the press literature, advertising, on-site info or the help file. To stick something like this in a program and to not pre-announce or even notify anyone of the fact that it IS there just gives people the creeps, hurts ADOBE, and gives rise to wild conspiracy theory allegations.. Add that to the new activation procedure for their software, as well as it’s update feature, (both of which AFAIK do actively communicate with ADOBE) and the conspiracy theorists are going to be in full swing within no time (actually, some of them already are if you read the threads elsewhere).
All this kind of stuff hurts ADOBE MUCH more than upfront disclosure might have. It’s as dumb a move as "New Coke" was..
Moreover, ADOBE is NOT the US Government, and shouldn’t be in the business of enforcing US Law. That’s the role of law enforcement authorities and government, not private industry.
Anyway, the fact that ADOBE included this without notifying anyone is very troubling.. What’s next, versions of PhotoShop that won’t open an image where it thinks nipples exists, unless the "owner" of the program is over 18 years old? This is like much of law in the US, it’s window dressing that doesn’t stop anyone who is hell bent on breaking the law, it just generally tends to inconvenience honest users and create a false sense of security instead of deterring the real crooks..
I think ADOBE may take a HUGE hit for this.. I’ve already received answers and queries to comments I forwarded to major IT Industry Trade Publications and mainstream press outlets – the press you see now at SlashDot and the AdobeForums is JUST the beginning – especially in an era when many feel the gov’t is intruding on civil liberties more and more each day, this is NEWS in BIG BOLD TYPE.
ADOBE could EASILY have avoided the negative press that is already ensuing, and more that is likely to come, simply by informing consumers and/or potential consumers of this addition/change. Shame on them for behaving like a pack of obsequeious mannon toadying morons.
At least, this professional designer would take a photograph of it. Has anyone investigated if this triggers the error message? This apples to the crumpled dollar image as well.
The checks dont only occur at the scanning phase but the loading and pasting phase. So you cant take a digial photo of a distressed note then load/ c&p/ or scan it into the comptuer for montage purposes.
I sure wouldn’t want to work in the PR department at Adobe right now–I think they and the Legal departments are in for some overtime in the next few weeks…..
A half-baked lawsuit may well be part of the fear the banks are using to push vendors on this..
In law there is a concept called the "attractive nuisance." The simplest example is a new swimming pool on a summer day.. A kid sees it, goes for a swim and drowns. The "reasonable person" would have anticipated this attraction and put up a fence when they installed the pool, to prevent just this type of behavior.
So, ADOBE and others add CDS to avoid potential lawsuits from Banks and even the parents of under-age casual counterfeitets who see the ease of casual counterfeiting by using the product as an "attractive nuisance." Just as a fence won’t deter people really serious about swimming in the pool, adding CDS, probably obviates potential fututre liability under the "attractive nuisance" theory – simply becuase the clear intent of the person circumventing the feature/fence is made crystal clear. Of course, this just shows how spineless ADOBE is in the face of potential lawsuits.. "Automatic copyright protection" to prevent similar behavior in the future, anyone?
As I’ve said, it’s the way ADOBE went about this. Not just the feature..
At least, this professional designer would take a photograph of it. Has anyone investigated if this triggers the error message? This apples to the crumpled dollar image as well.
it also even gets picked up on prints of scanned notes which have then been printed out again worn out and rescanned, so taking a photo is unlikely to do the trick
from what i can tell on a UK £20 its something in the head area or close proximity to it that triggers it, but i havent been able to isolate it yet. I’m sure its only a matter of time though.
Kerala News: Computerised counterfeiting: Two youths held 2-January-2004
Kochi,Kerala: in this land of Telgi bhai, innovations in counterfeiting hold no surprise.
But this one incident, busted by the Palakkad Railway Police and Crime Branch, would make the great masters of the art sit up as two youths have shown that Kerala can outsmart the Sivakasi clan with just a personal computer, a photo scanner and a normal colour printer.
This skill was not a part of their PGDCA syllabi. But Sunil and Chandran, hailing from Kodungallur and Kuttoor respectively, found new uses for photoshop in reproducing currency notes with near perfection. The modus operandi, sources say, is as simple as scanning a passport-size photograph.
”They first scanned the Rs 100 note, fine- tuned the image using photoshop and took a printout on plain paper while innovating a low-budget strategy to counterfeit notes. A silver pen was used for drawing the watermark line,” an official of Crime Branch said.
Sunil used the facility in a computer institute at Kodungallur to scan the note. He copied the image in a floppy and touched it up on his PC at home. The printout was also taken using his personal printer. ”We have seized all these and detected the image file in his hard disc,” sources said.
The detection of the fraud was a freak incident in itself. Having printed about 100 copies, the duo decided to meet acknowledged names in the trade who operate from Tamil Nadu. In the last week of December, they left for Chennai only to land in police custody after the bluff was called at Palakkad.
”They used one of the printouts to buy a bottle of mineral water from Palakkad railway station. When the vendor raised doubts about its originality, the duo picked up a fight with him. This brought the Railway Police to the scene who booked them. About 95 duplicate notes were confiscated. The case was later transferred to the Crime Branch,” sources said.
The Crime Branch team, led by DySP Thomas and Circle Inspector Shaji, produced Sunil and Chandran before the Judicial Magistrate Court. They have been remanded in custody till January 5.
”Palakkad continues to be main source of counterfeit currency in Kerala. Forged notes are brought from certain pockets in Tamil Nadu where the trade has literally assumed the status of a cottage industry. A Keralite named Mohammed Ali is believed to be the kingpin behind these operations,” top sources said.
Though the conventional techniques used in the trade still remain, Crime Branch officials admitted that the entry of computers in the business was quite worrying.
See the mess you made here, Brian? I think this thread may set a record for the highest number of posts ever in the history of the Adobe forums (if it hasn’t already!). My compliments! Wait till this story hits the big time–once CNN and AP get ahold of it, the site’s gonna be absolutely flooded with complaints. I feel sorry for John Cornicello (the webmaster).
So, everybody buys the idea that pattern matching for various bank notes on a 100 MB image doesn’t slow the loading?
I don’t.
I can see safeguards on the output side, but on the input side? Ridiculous! Now we know where Dilbert’s boss actually works!
I for one won’t buy another upgrade, will recommend everyone I know against it and will be happy to use 7 until someone builds a better mousetrap without activation (minor), bank-note detection (disturbing, but not a deal-breaker) and as fast as 7 (the killer)!
Actually, we counterfitters are keeping a low profile. Import into Imageready, transfer to Photoshop: thanks guys. I’ll print out a hundred 20’s or so this evening to supplement my income.
But joking aside, I think this was a bad idea on Adobe’s part, but I think they might be getting the hint.
It doesn’t *equate* to anything, nor was he trying to do so – it’s merely a poem describing the dangers of ignoring the plight of others simply because it doesn’t affect you now. Why don’t you guys understand this? I’ve seen similar verses used many many times, in many different types of discussions, and I’ve never once heard anyone complain of being every slightly offended by it – if anything they wish such sentiments were more prevalent back when billions of people turned a blind eye to what was happening in Europe.
Just because the original even was so absolutely horrific doesn’t mean that you should be offended at its mere mention; I’m sorry (and I know you’re gonna get pissed at me for saying this) but there is absolutely nothing to be offended about by that poem, read in any context, whether the reader is Jewish or not. (Full disclosure: I am not Jewish, but at the same time I am not anti-semitic in the slightest.)
Or are they just waiting for things to cool down a bit?
They’re probably working their way down through the ranks to find a "volunteer" to take the heat. Don’t think I’d want to be that person!
I remember when I worked at the corporate headquarters for A Huge Brewing Company here in Missouri. There was one guy in the management pool who was their standard whipping boy. Whenever something distasteful or uncomfortable had to be done, or there was heat to be taken, they called on good ol’ Jerry to do it. I can’t remember the number of times I watched as a whole roomful of executives ripped the poor guy a new orifice. I think that’s really the only reason they kept him around. I wonder if there’s anyone like that at Adobe?
I thank Kevin for stopping by to give us Adobe’s position, but I have to ask: why does Photoshop prevent the user from opening these images? Wouldn’t it be enough (in terms of covering their butts, reducing liability, etc.) to simply warn the user of the *potential* implications of improper use of currency imagery, and then go ahead and open the file after the user clicks OK? Clicking "accept" is legally binding in terms of accepting a EULA – wouldn’t a similar concept apply in this case?
While it would certainly be annoying I think I could live with that, knowing that they were just covering their interests and also warning an otherwise-unknowing user that they might be inadvertently breaking the law. But stopping me, without any possiblity of knowing what my motives or intentions are, well that’s something else entirely.
Adobe has their reasons, and I’m sure they’ll listen. But, unless it costs them more money than they make from the deal, I expect nothing will change, eh? Good weekend all!
If Adobe got it I would think someone from Abobe would chime in here. Or are they just waiting for things to cool down a bit?
No. Chiming in, outside of the statement that Kevin gave would be a death blow.
If they reverse it due to public outcry, and state such, that opens the door for everything to be revamped (including activation) if the voices are loud enough. Not a good example to set.
On the other hand, if they decide to pull it, it would be with the next release and it would get the same publicity that it’s inclusion did – none. If they did pull it and were questioned, they would probably defer to performance or quality control issues.
But let’s face it – they aren’t pulling it, Jasc has it, and the Central Bank is doing what it can to include it where ever there is digital imaging going on. It’s not going away, is my bet.
It also opens up a market for algorithms that can detect digital content. I mentioned earlier that if Disney had a way to digitally enforce copyright protection, they would, and they would pay big money to do so.
Brian, you have created quite a stir thanks for bringing it to all of our attention.
You’re quite welcome – I was absolutely flabbergasted when we first came across it the other day, and I think there have been a lot of really great points made and ramifications discussed as a result. I’m not convinced that Adobe is actually listening (I get the feeling that they posted their "side of the story" and are quite likely going to leave it at that) but I hope they prove me wrong on that.
In order to reach the "tipping point" this will have to be picked up by the mass media. I’m sure someone in this forum knows someone with those connections.
See the mess you made here, Brian? I think this thread may set a record for the highest number of posts ever in the history of the Adobe forums (if it hasn’t already!). My compliments! Wait till this story hits the big time–once CNN and AP get ahold of it, the site’s gonna be absolutely flooded with complaints. I feel sorry for John Cornicello (the webmaster).
The only way things might change regarding this is if we, the loyal paying customers, manage to put enough pressure (via the threat of losing business) on them to change it. So in that regard I hope the story breaks even larger, and that the forums are flooded with concerns, and the phones @ Adobe start ringing off the hook, and their email inboxes burst at the virtual seams.
I don’t find the poem offensive. I find its use in this context offensive. As for Nagash, he ranted and raved about how he wouldn’t buy PS CS but he bought it anyway. What exactly does that say about his "principles?"
I don’t think they will be able to leave it at that if we keep yelling about it. This isn’t going to go away, especially once the media gets hold of it. I can’t wait to see a few news trucks lined up outside Adobe’s building in San Jose. Media people use Photoshop too…
Adobe made a simple decision to walk the slippery slope presented by embedding this technology. I’m certain had the same parties approached Adobe say 8 years ago (?) during PS version 5 running off of Pentium I’s and Power PC’s- Adobe would have objected that it imposed far too many performence penalties. True enough I’m sure. Yet now when they would try to reassure us that the effect of this CDS technology has negligible effect on performence, they cross yet another slippery slope. We’ve become innurred to Moore’s law and anticipate that every new version will be even faster. That being so, at Adobe’s end do they entertain further ‘protections’ to shoehorn into newer software? I’m certain there are a good many beneficiaries that may exist for this all perhaps for good causes. Should we pay essentially a tariff on Moore’s law because additional seemingly inconspicuous checks are possible with each advancement in technology? But that’s not we expect to be buying when we pay for photo-editing software…
There are plenty of stories of teenage hacks who misguidedly and clumsily made there own bills and passed them at the mall, the school cafeteria, etc. They were all fairly obvious, were caught right away, and paid for the crimes they committed. I presume that these were the types Adobe was convinced would be dissuaded by embedding such detection technology at this stage. Certainly Adobe’s engineers were smart enough to realize, and even voice to the higher-ups, that none of this would have any effect on the professional bad people out there. So in the end, Adobe was convinced (and who knows how much convincing it took) that this ‘threat’ could be thwarted by preventing such ameteurs and juveniles from simply being tempted in the first place. So then Adobe finds themselves in the business of helping us to avert our temptations…
I dunno. You have no options. You can stay with current versions of PS or PaintShop Pro, or you can upgrade. You can use the Gimp, but I don’t think this issue will drive digital editors to it in droves.
So what’s the downside for Adobe keeping it in? At worst, they can be viewed as many view Redmond – all your pictures are belong to us.
I just don’t see a real downside to them keeping it in (for them).
And Bob,
I find its use in this context offensive.
I see your point better now. It took me a couple of posts (you and Dave) to see it from that perspective. I don’t happen to agree, but understand better your objection, which is reasonable.
So let me be clear on this and back on topic. I understand why Adobe put this "feature" into the software, but like just about everyone here, I think there should have been some disclosure, even if it was in the EULA or the fine print on the box.
Adobe the corporation has posted its official stand, but in reality, I doubt they thought out all the implications and probably are embarrassed by all the fuss. The adobe reps that post here (John, Chris, etc.) might feel the same way most of us do and perhaps put some pressure internally to change the way the algorithm is written. I doubt they would feel free to discuss this with any of us publically. I doubt that many people will really refuse to buy the software over this issue alone, but I think the message has been sent to Adobe to reconsider its overall philosophy about censorship. With the patriot act and other politics going on these days, the outcry probably as much relates to this as to CS activation issues. But maybe I’m wrong.
OK, here’s a unique way to get this feature removed by ADOBE AND the Banks real fast… It’s a spin on how hackers often defeat network security. OVERLOAD THE SYSTEM so that the "feature" invokes itself TOO often to be valuable..
Remember that example of PART of how it works over at:
What would happen if lots and lots of PhotoShop and other software users started using an overlay of those EURION patterns on images they used on the net in portfolios, advertising, etc?
All of a sudden, people would be getting the "currency" error message on images that were downloaded or saved from all kinds of places.. If enough people use overlays like that, the scheme itself will destroy itself of its own weight.. Just like overloading a network connection with too many requests, the feature will become a real problem if people constantly are told they cannot open images..
If anyone comes up with workable overlays that trigger the protection, AND are not simply copied from an existing piece of currency, you should let us all know.. Hmmm.. Maybe I should patent the use of the EURION design for copyright protection as a "separate and not intrinsically obvious use"… You saw it here FIRST folks!
It’s just another drop in the bucket. I know for a fact that as a hobbiest I carry no weight at all, but mine is not an idle threat to not buy Adobe any more. It all started with the cross polination of ideas with Microsoft. I’ve backed into Photoshop from the video editing side and if you ask me that is where the problems started. After working so closely with M$ to get Premiere Pro optimized for XP and dumping Mac, that was the first product with activation issues. It was also the start of systematically starting to make an existing Adobe product licence worthless. I hate to dump a bunch of other stuff in this thread but to me they all point to what direction this ship is headed.
I’m not even going to pretend that I’ve read this whole thread but someone way back compared what Adobe is doing to the old guy at the front of Wal-Mart. I totally agree… the problem is that he said that the old guy useless. Absolutely not. He is there to distract from the real goings on. On one occation I was walking out right behind someone that had lifted something. Yes, we both walked right past the smiling old guy. Then after the theif was about 1/2 a step out the front door he was covered by about ten security guards. I never saw them coming and I’m pretty sure the dope on the ground didn’t either. On another occation a kid went missing from his parents. They made some anouncement over the PA. All of sudden it seemed that about one in ten people in the store were employees. Kid found in five minutes. The old guy was still at the front of the store smiling….
What is still in my inquiring mind is what in post 15 was meant by shouting at the forum that we should THINK ?
The result of this required thinking process may have become not exactly the one desired, besides the point that I still do not understand what to think about it…
So let me be clear on this and back on topic. I understand why Adobe put this "feature" into the software, but like just about everyone here, I think there should have been some disclosure, even if it was in the EULA or the fine print on the box.
Agreed… and as I mentioned in another post, if it still allowed you to open the image after providing an "opt-in" warning of some sort I think I could live with that, too… what really drives me batty is that they are making broad assumptions as to my intent, which they cannot possibly know.
I agree that threats not to buy the software don’t carry much weight. I don’t take them seriously. I doubt that Adobe does either.
Rod,
Agreed, however, ADOBE should be forewarned.. This is VERY similar to the outrage (for very different superficial reasons) seen back about three years AGO when EPSON promoted the 1270 and 870 as "making prints that last as long as traditional silver prints." EPSON even got a PPA endorsement of the products being "certified for Professional Photographer use" based in part on their claim. Then it became clear that the prints could shift to orange in less than a day under some conditions. What happened? Well, they made the news across the globe from CNN, to the Philadelphia Inquirer, to the Sydney Herald. They had to refund printers worldwide and lost millions of $, not to mention the trust of many who truly BELIEVED in EPSON.. AND EPSON was privately held.. Who knows what something like this could do to ADOBE stock?
Although the issues underlying are very different, the outrage is based in the same emotional dissatisfaction and violation of trust. Consumers develop brand loyalty and expect the companies they extend that loyalty to behave as fine upstanding corporate citizens and doi everything above board. When they don’t, righteous and justified indignation is a foreseeable result.
In this case, ADOBE has always had a huge loyalty from many of its long-term users. WE’ve even been likened to Evangelistas. It’s the same kind of loyalty, and in many ways grown from the same community, that APPLE draws from. It’s the free spirits, the artists, the thinkers, the creative intellectuals. That community’s loyalty can be hard won, BUT once you have it, you have a loyal army of near cult-like zealots. To extend the cult-analogy, what happens when the trust the followers extend is abused or used to promote an agenda that is anathema to the followers?
There’s the real danger to ADOBE in all of this.. That those who so long trumpeted ther products, who admired the company and the way it did business, will now see them as just another big player.. If you don’t think that loss of trust has effects, check out what happened to EPSON (and how it pushed their move away from dye-based inks), or the effects of Canon 35mm SLR products and advertising on Nikon in the early 90s, particularly in the Sports Photographer market segment. Once you lose that trust, once consumers see your product or company as just ONE among many, you’ve completely lost a cachet you can’t easily regain..
Moreover, I was directly involved in the EPSON incident, it’s genesis, and the media coverage. This whole situation, it’s growth and the emotions of those involved are very similar. Others, and I, who were involved in making the public at large aware of the EPSON fiasco are now involved in making the public similarly aware of this breach of trust by ADOBE – and we are just as motivated.
Do you really think that if you go to a showroom to look at the latest Canon Color Copier that you are going to see "It doesn’t copy money" listed as a "feature"? I doubt it. Why would you expect Adobe to list it in their features?
And don’t expect publicity of this to make Adobe remove it. They probably will put a positive spin on it as showing that they are "doing their part" to stop their program being used to make funny money.
Will it stop the dozen or so "real" counterfeit operations? No. Will it make a dent in the thousands of amateur counterfeiters that print up a couple thousand dollars worth of bills and pass them off at the local gas station. Yes, it probably will.
Does this add a performance hit? Unlikely. The hit is already there with the scan for watermarks, which has been part of PS for several versions. This is just a few more patterns to look for, so probably adds a tiny additional hit.
well…i think they could be called up by their advertising and speil
at the top of adobe’s product list its says "What do you need to do?" erm scan a bank note perhaps???….click on the link and into the first paragraph it states "You’re in control"….yeah right !
on another note over 3000 people have viewed the 100 post thread at cgtalk…now if the rate views/posts is the same for this thread…
The hit is already there with the scan for watermarks, which has been
part of PS for several versions. This is just a few more patterns to look for, so probably adds a tiny additional hit.
And therein lies the fallacy.. You see if you remove the Digimarc Plugins, you can get rid of that DigiMarc performance hit. However, if you remove EVERY plugin from PS CS, the recognition of currency still functions… Go ahead, try it yourself..
That means the recognition is :
1) Hard coded into PS CS even if instituted by DLL
2) A completely additive hit, not simply a search using the DigiMarc plugin for additional information flagged by the plugin as "watermarked"..
Somebody(s) at ADOBE is trying VERY hard to spin this so everyone thinks it is trivial in every sense of that word.. It isn’t trivial in terms of file opening times or clipboard export times, and it certainly isn’t trivial in regards to guaranteed First Amendment rights of Free Speech and Freedom of Expression…
Of course it is ONLY to protect all us "honest folks from bad people.."
Great, now ADOBE is a "benevolent dictatorship.." Color me "overjoyed" and please use some of those outlawed color shifting, mica bearing inks that have been pulled off the market for similar reasons.. Yup, I feel all warm, fuzzy, and safe with BIG ADOBE and the Central Banks protecting me from all those "bad" potential temptations… If it inconveniences me as an artist I’m sure I can get some physician to prescribe a drug to come my "irrational" anxieties or "annoyance" at having my basic human/Constitutional rights violated.
Many artists go into ART "precisely" because they HATE this kind of governmental behavior and the strictures of general society. Their work is a commentary on these very types of behaviors and inanity. In fact, railing against this kind of stuff has underpinned much of great ART for centuries. Just a guess, but I don’t think we’ll find many artists who like this idea, especially when it so neatly coincides with inclusion of the new activation features.
Kevin addresses the currency issue, but not the other issue of a scan of something NOT Disney triggering a Disney related message.
What’s up with that? Would CS prevent me from opening a photo of my kid with Mickey at Disneyworld? Would it not allow me to optomize the photo of my kid’s favorite baby toy? (A stuffed baby Mickry)
Regarding currency…………I’m not clear…… Has it become illegale to scan, photograph, manipulate it? Is so, then WHEN did this happen?
Personally I try to use as much of my own work as possible…that means to take a LOT of digital photos, and I use them in my work. My own private stock if you will. So I too frown upon ‘canned currency’.
Personally I’m glad I don’t have the upgrade, and I’m not sure if I will even bother…to me it seems that Adobe has really bombed with CS on several accounts.
And these are my reasons:
Activation….I don’t have a problem with it. What I DO have a problem with is any software that decides it should keep running footprint programs in the background taxing my system.
Tons and tons of reports of serious, serious performance slowdown.
The ‘minimum’ screen res. I have very bad eyes. I can’t work at 1024. Period. I can make one helluva image when I can see what I’m doing. And it’s not just *me* what about artists with disabilites? MS’ers for example that have eyesight issues. They have seriously made a mistake with this one.
The icing on the cake has been this thread. It’s against the law for me to smoke in a reataurant. Has Marloboro made it so my cigerettes won’t light in from of McD’s. No. Nor should Adobe sqaush my creativity in this way.
My behaviour is up to ME…not some corperation that thinks it should decide what I should do.
I have always held Adobe on a pedestal….the pedestal has fallen. And if I lived on the other coast I’d be standing outside a certain software giant holding a sign.
I think the words ‘industry standard..’ will soom be used to describe imaging software that doesn’t have an ‘A’ on the front.
the most worrying aspect of this is the actual thought or management process that even ended up with this…having used PS for 10 or so years, i never thought this sort of idoicy would ever come to light at adobe…adobe is no longer cutting edge, it seems its trying to find the exact point of the knife edge that allows it to be as least professional as it can get away with whilst being considered a professional company that produces apps with support and features aimed at the user interest.
and i wonder what time and money this took up that could have been spent giving us a feature or ironing out some of the creases.
the most worrying aspect of this is the actual thought or management >process that even ended up with this… having used PS for 10 or so >years, i never thought this sort of idiocy would ever come to light at >adobe
Yup Progress, my feelings exactly.
I’ve used PS since version III, back when ADOBE actually encouraged us in those small meetings held at MacWorld to use RAM disks for scratch files if we had extra RAM we couldn’t access directly via the OS.. Heck, I even got one of the first copies of the "clouds" filters at one of those events.
Since then, I’ve used PhotoShop on Mac and Wintel boxes.. That’s over 10 years..
Add this to the corporate resistance at ADOBE to:
1) porting PS to Linux, when they’ve already carbonized it for the Mac..
2) corporate resistance to doing away with the unnecessary overhead of its proprietary memory management, when OSs can now access memory with less overhead
3) fix the documented and apparently still unfixed bug/roundoff/truncation of data when converting from Greyscale to RGB. (the bug surfaced in PS 7 and I run a utility to convert instead – otherwise I get posterization of some images meant for a Quadtone B&W workflow)
4) to even admit that 16 bit files are really 15 bits, plus an ADOBE "high bit"..
5) the general trend of creating bloatware by adding unnecessary features with upgrades while not fixing known problems..
I dunno.. but, to me, ADOBE and PShop is all looking very much like Micro$oft and Word these days..
BTW: I want to apologize to forum regulars for the fact that I went from no posting to perhaps overly prolific posts in the fora here.. Please don’t get the idea that I see myself as some kind of authority on any of this.. I’m really just another user.
I’d like to hone in onto the REAL ISSUE that is at concern here.
Most of us do not need to scan in currency, nor would we be interested in becoming counterfeiters. this is a moot point.
The REAL issue here is PRECEDENCE.
what Adobe has done is establish a very dangerous precedent. once they have admitted to complying with friendly "requests" from one business interest, and intentionally COVERED THIS UP till they were caught red-handed -whats next?
what’s essentially frightening about this is that the US government DID NOT ask them to do this. this is NOT a legal issue. I could live with it if it really was someone like the State Department threatening them with breaking a REAL law. Their own links provided in the error message CONFIRM that what you are being prevented from doing is TECHNICALLY LEGAL!
what is happening is that COPRORATE INTERESTS are determining HOW and under WHAT CONDITIONS software programs that we buy and pay for – ANALYZE behind our backs what we’re doing.
This is a very slippery slope. We have only a few years before more "friendly" corporate requests come in to other software and hardware manufacturers, helpfully preventing us from accessing "copyrighted" material, "terrorist" information, etc.
And this is NOT just about Photoshop. This will be about hard drives, iPods, digital TV’s, etc.
What is happening is that our technology is becoming more "INTELLIGENT" and "AWARE" of specific files, behaviors, it is becoming increasingly ALL TOO EASY for someone to put in code that "polices" us. An RFID chip the size of a grain of rice will soon be affordable enough to be put into ANY product whatsoever and tell the store security guard that you’re stealing that pack of gum (legitimate use) OR that you like wearing JC Penny black socks with your new GAP underwear when you buy that Britney Spears CD….(hmmm -corporate marketing use?).
essentially: how do we trust the MOTIVATIONS behind back-door code that we are NEVER TOLD ABOUT. can we simply assume its "for our own good?"
How long till the next version of windows effortlessly scans your hard drive for currency pictures, copyrighted mp3’s, or bomb making FAQ’s?
the genius is that ANY software program in the future will have this ability to secretly ANALYZE whatever we’re doing. this is the big brother equivalent of spyware!
The $20 is the tip of the iceberg. It no doubt cost MONEY for Adobe to incorprorate this technology into CS, no doubt which those "friendly" central banks naturally kicked in a few million as a "reimbursement."
if the banks see this as financially feasible, why not the recording industry, hollywood, etc? why should you afterall be able to open a clip from "Mona Lisa Smile" in Premiere? your’e not selling DVD’s on the corner are you? Oops, didn’t think so.
Has it become illegale to scan, photograph, manipulate it? Is so, then WHEN did this happen?
If I remember what I read correctly, the site referenced about the rules only talk about USE, not preparation.
When did it become illegal to edit ANY kind of image?
Then there’s Ellen’s example of Precedence (which is what I alluded to earlier).
what is happening is that COPRORATE INTERESTS are determining HOW and under WHAT CONDITIONS software programs that we buy and pay for – ANALYZE behind our backs what we’re doing.
That’s the point. And when the EULA is changed so that you agree to let them do this, and you undergo what they see as questionable behavior (through activation), they can shut you down. And they get to decide what’s appropriate, without telling you in advance.
Yes Bob I bought PCCS. Im ashamed and disgusted with myself. But activation was not a hidden feature.
IT IS NOT ILLEGAL in the USA to scan/edit/print BankNotes as long as you do it following the law.
hey Now IMHO
Right now we are probable Pirates! we are probable Counterfiters!
In future Patches/Updates/New Versions we will be probable Copyright infringers! we will be probable Pornographers ! we will be probable Thiefs! we will be probable (Out whatever you want here)!
Adobe Please Safe us from ourselfs!!!!!!
Adobe HAS added code not written by them. What does it do? We dont know.
What Other code could be lurking around? We dont know.
"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 creator of the technology, Digimarc, confirmed that it had produced the code under contract to the banking group, but wouldn’t discuss any details.
"Due to the nature of the project, all the players and details are confidential," said Leslie Constans. Jasc, the maker of Paintshop Pro, couldn’t be reached for comment.
Little information exists on the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group (CBCDG). "
"The current implementation does not take into account your intent," >said Adobe’s Connor, who characterized the curtailing of artists rights >as just "changing the source of where you would get the images."
OK, NOW can we yell at the messenger?
"JUST CHANGING THE SOURCE OF WHERE YOU GET THE IMAGES"?
Oh SURE! The words "unmitigated unalloyed corporate marketing tripe" come to mind for some reason…
I would MOST STRONGLY suggest that EVERY concerned member of this forum, post your thoughts on the fora associated with the stories that people find links too. It is VERY IMPORTANT that people on those fora understand that the ADOBE spin is not the whole story. Just look at what it took for some people here to even believe the reports were true…
I’ve read through all of this, as well as every comment on Slashdot’s board, and other places as well.
BrianNS, you brought it to our attention (Tip-o-the-Tam for that), but I’m the one who submitted it to Slashdot. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Hmm…Am I proud to have fomented the fervor, or embarrassed to have caused the ruckus?
Memories of a certain off-board petition and the criticism for doing so are echoing loudly in my ears. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Yeah… I did the right thing.
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.
I don’t suppose ADOBE will be answering that?
"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.
Povimage I doubt they will until they deem that a revolt is about to ensue. THEN when they see that their bottom Line $$$$ is in peril then they will act. Not until then.
If you’re gonna quote stuff like that you MUST provide a link to the source. If you’re here via Slashdot, you should know that.
I just spent 10 minutes digging around at <http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/> , searching and browsing, and could not find the article you reference as being in that newspaper.
I, too, would like to see a broad and deep discuission about this, but posts like yours, where you "quoted" the Miami Herald, are a little suspect if an average surfer (let alone a good info-miner, like me) can’t find your reference.
Please keep this important topic relevant and as well-linked and referenced as possible.
The History channel was running a piece last night on currency minting. Interestingly, private currency for trade is legal in the U.S. The Liberty Dollar <http://www.norfed.org/default.asp> Would Adobe accept such currency for payment for its software?
You’re kidding, right? Guts to post something on an internet forum? I think not.
Bob,
Let’s not worry about such a tangential point, or belabor it, it’s only going to clog the forum with off-topic posts.
However, I am assuming they are artists or graphics professionals for whom access to the forum is valuable as an adjunct to their work. When you post on a commercially managed board things that are guaranteed NOT to please the board owners, you inherently risk losing access or finding it more difficult.. You can of course, create a new account if you get booted, but it’s another hurdle..
Beyond which, it is always easier to remain silent.. Maybe "guts" was the wrong word, perhaps "conviction" would have been more apropos, but I would prefer not to quibble over it. In any case, they deserve credit, if only for taking the time to make others aware.
For as short as the Miami Herald article is,it’s evident the reporter/researcher did some diggin-n-readin’. It’s pretty well balanced, considering how new the story is.
Cheers to them.
(((Phosphor grew up in a news-attentive household, with a newscameraman Dad who was on TMI for 9 days, who filmed the public suicide of a PA state legislator and who helped break a story about the PA lottery fix, among other high-profile stuff)))
I believe that the most important perspective from this event is that governments, and not just the US government, are being slowly replaced by a defacto government consisting of major corporate interests, who do not have to answer to any voters or bound by the Bill of Rights.
That corporate entities can and did usurp legitimate government regulation of reproduction rights to it’s own currency can and must be seen for what it is: the intent of corporate domination of our lives, down to the tiniest detail, so far as technology is capable. It must also be seen as the wholesale desertion of the duties and obligations of certainly two, if not all three, arms of American government to the American people.
I have been posting to Adobe’s forums for years. I have NEVER seen a post deleted or censored because of critism of the company. And there’s been plenty of it.
The only things I’ve ever seen deleted are posts with links to pirated software, personal attacks, and obsenity.
I think even the gentlemen that you complimented for their courage would agree that it does not take any kind of bravery to post an anti-Adobe sentiment here.
Yes, thank you Brian for bringing this issue into the public eye and Phos for submitting this to Slashdot. I see the news is getting out there, and that is good!
I have posted a link to this thread on every BB that I belong to and am about to ‘Blog’ it.
I urge anyone who is appalled by this to do whatever you can to alert others so that one collective voice can be heard.
The Ted Bridis article is now running in: Miami Herald; Boston Globe; San Diego Union Tribune; The Globe and Mail, Canada; Newsday; Rapid City Journal, SD; The Ledger, FL; eWeek etc.
Do us all a favor and keep the rhetoric to a minimum. You’ve already been confused by this issue once and there is no reason to spread lies and innuendo concerning a topic that is already well on its way from molehill to mountain. The point to which I refer is when you question the bit about using Mickey Mouse in an image. Someone only brought that red herring up to illustrate a point.
The check, and this is VERY important if all of you morons are going to persist in flogging this dead horse, only looks for the newer US $20 bill (the colorful one with no oval around the portrait) and a couple of the new Euros. So far all other money, including older US $20 bills can be scanned to your hearts content, and to those counterfeiters amongst us they can be printed and used is if you wish to take the risk.
This is v1.0 of this new feature and it has been stated clearly that problems will be addressed when they arise and are made known to Adobe. By v2.0 there could very well be other pieces of paper currency which cannot be scanned in this manner but it is also quite likely that scanning will be allowed but printing and/or saving prior to making changes required by law (which is what this should have done in the first place) will not.
Sorry to have razed your molehill but you people really need to get a grip. Do I like this? Not particularly but there are simple work arounds that can be used in the mean time, one of which means getting the images straight from the source <http://www.moneyfactory.com/newmoney/>. I think you people need to take the tinfoil hats off when standing near the microwave. It has clearly affected your already limited intellects.
I think you people need to take the tinfoil hats off when standing near the microwave. It has clearly affected your already limited intellects.
Wholly uncalled for Stuart, and WHOLLY unprofessional.. We are all free to have our opinions, who are you to decide which opinions are valid or who is of enough intellectual or other caliber to merit being taken seriously? Throughout this thread you have consistently taken a corporate apologist for ADOBE and naysayer attitude.. Fine, well that does NOT mean the opinions of others are less valid than yours.
In point-of-fact your quote’s a direct flame of Tina, and indirectly of others.. In that sense, I do believe it violates the terms of use for this forum "nez pas?"
"A number of international companies have already started to incorporate this technology into their products on a voluntary basis. However, given the size of this market segment, concluding separate agreements with all of the undertakings concerned is not considered a workable option.
As a result, the possibility of enacting appropriate Community legislation is under consideration. Such legislation would require any equipment, software or other products manufactured, imported, distributed or sold within the EU that is capable of capturing images or transferring images into, or out of, computer systems or of manipulating or producing digital images for the purposes of counterfeiting, to incorporate counterfeit deterrence technology."
That could mean incorporating the technology into OSes, into cameras, into printers, even into memory cards, storage devices, etc. Geez!
Imagine CD drives that refuse to read archived images of currency etc?
But there’s an even potentially scarier side to this. Let’s say you’re the CIA, MI5, MI6, or the Military and you have installations you don’t want photographed or secret/classified equipment, the existence of which you don’t want disclosed? Just incorporate the pattern on the camouflage or paint scheme and digital cameras won’t photograph it. Even more interesting is this SPOT, the French satellite firm makes worldwide satellite imagery available.. The US and other nations are NOT happy that SPOT provides high resolution imagery of any location you request (but they deal with it), yet, the resolution and image quality of such imagery provided by independent companies increases inexorably… How to keep imagery of the secret installations away from your potential adversaries? Again, incorporate the pattern in your paint or design scheme. Then, the satellites of SPOT or others can still photograph the sites, but, people will never be able to see them – how do you get them out of SPOTs computers and to the public or other buyers without getting tripped up by the aforementioned recognition software..
WOW, I like the spin…. Adobe is now presented as a "hero" for being a leader in anti-counterfiting measures.
And the rest of us still feel crapped upon and ignored. OK, stop talking, take some action! Hit them in the pocket book however you can. Those who need the currency scanning ability for employment, find a hungry lawyer, file a class action suit for deceptive advertising and fraud. They provided you a defective product intentionally. User agreements don’t cover product liabilities in cases of fraud. Rather like selling you a high performance car with a built in 70mph governor (to keep you from exceeding speed limits, of course).
That PDF GoldFrost pointed to does help explain why ADOBE feels so pressured..
Don’t include the CDS software in your product and you may find yourself in future being legally shut out of the ENTIRE EU market..
Personally, I think ADOBE should have waited until such a law passed, especially given the commentary in that document about the voluntary process being nice but unsuccessful, given the extensive breadth of the target segment.
It’s not as if ADOBE doing this voluntarily was going to help prevent future required provisions or mechanisms. The document makes that relatively clear. Perhaps though, ADOBE was afraid that even today, EU government entities would refuse to purchase ADOBE software that did not contain said provisions?
".. We are all free to have our opinions, who are you to decide which opinions are valid or who is of enough intellectual or other caliber to merit being taken seriously?"
Isn’t this sentence something of an oxymoron?
While you certainly said things in a more polite manner, in the same sentence you are saying two opposing things. In one breath you say we are all free to have our opinions (which I would assume means one can express said opinion), and then in the next breath you castigate him for expressing his opinion that everyone else’s opinions are wrong.
Is he free to express his opinion or not, even if his opinion is that everyone elses opinion is wrong?
I just opened the $20 image file in a picture viewer (full screen mode) and did a screen capture. When I tried pasting it into PSCS, the alert came up! Tried the same thing with a browser window. If the browser window is set to full screen, the error comes up! Try it.
To me, the aspect of what Adobe has done that is the most galling is that they are preventing users from using the software for an activity that is absolutely and unequivocally LEGAL in the United States. Creating and editing a photographic image of American currency is not illegal. REPRODUCING the currency in the same size, shape and color as the original – both sides, of course – is what is illegal. You may legally reproduce American paper currency in full glorious color IF you do not reproduce it at the original size and on both sides of the paper – the guidelines are spelled out on the gummint website that most of us have seen by now.
Using my Epson 2450, I scanned the obverse of a new 2004 version $20 bill yesterday, bringing it into PS 7 via TWAIN. Continuing the experiment I then attempted to print the image of the bill using my HP Photosmart 7960 printer. The machine printed about a third of the image, then stopped, adding the text: "http://www.rulesforuse.org" below the partially-printed image. The printer obviously has money-recognition software built into it.
I believe THAT is an appropriate application of the crime-stopper software. I can scan and edit the image all I want on my computer, but the PRINTER will not give me a hard copy. I find this acceptable and totally correct. For Photoshop itself to refuse to open such an image is inappropriate and Orwellian, to put it mildly. What Adobe has done – probably entirely for its own financial advantage, though no one is telling the full story yet – is not appropriate or even sensible, considering the many workarounds available.
stuart- your completely wrong…its doesnt check only for the new $20 bill…it affects UK currency, euros, swedish currency (even stopping images that the bank issue!!) chinese currency…to be honest i wouldnt be suprised if it affected most notes designed in the last couple of years…
and again people are not thinking beyond their own borders…you can ONLY GET US DOLLARS from that site…NO EURO, NO STERLING ETC ETC…
rulesforuse.org doesnt exactly work well either, with UK sterling it points you to a PDF application form for use because it seems they missed the online web application form that clearly states the common rules for use. IT ALSO FAILS TO DISPLAY ANY INFORMATION OF HOW TO GET A £20 THAT WILL WORK….is there one??
Lets see how many notes that are affected actually have a viable alternative route for reproduction….wonder if adobe even bothered to do it……
I have been using Photoshop since Version 2.5 (yes that long) and have worked in design for almost 11 years now, and on many occasions have had to use in house produced photos or scans of currency for ad campaigns, modified to legal requirements og course. One of our clients is a specialist employments agency, other are large stores, car dealerships etc etc. Adverts contain text such as ‘save pounds pounds pounds’ or ‘earn more with us’ or words to that effect for the employment agencies. Montages or photos of currency would make up part of the advert. They were much smaller or larger than actual size and often in black and white. No actual size colour reproductions thank you, so they were legal. And I must say due to how the currency was manipulated or photographed the ‘authorized’ images you can download from various central banks sites would not have been adequate, and you would be more limited as to what could be achieved with them.
I’m sure others here who work in design or advertising get the idea.
So why cant we do this anymore? Thats basically what Adobe is saying.
As for those geniuses on here who keep referring to the links for central banks where legal images can be obtained:
Plan A: I download low resolution images with the word ‘specimen’ printed each end, and use this instead? I’m sure the ad would look great in a glossy mag with ‘specimen’ plastered all over it, possibly with the banknotes pixelated due to the low resulution even if I did manage to convincingly remove the ‘specimen’ text, then I fend of clients calls asking ‘What I am playing at? Why is it all blocky?’
Plan B: I print them and photograph them? Oh great I spend another few hours creating mock up notes for someone to hold, and convincingly touch out the ‘specimen’ text before making them. And that would be for just a handfull. Oh that would be illegal now wouldnt it? Making copies of cash at size. So even that cant be done. Back to Plan A.
And what about these people who take photos of their kids holding the money they got from gran for their birthday or xmas or won in some competition?
Someone creates artwork, e.g a gift voucher or money off voucher or even fictitious currency or some other intricate design where they accidently creating a pattern which triggers Digimarcs anti-fraud filter, then what? The design is perfect, but Photoshop CS doesn’t like it.
Even if you get around it somehow, are they going to add this feature to the next version of Acrobat? Most printers and bureaux use PDF for output now. So even if you get currency in there, It wouldn’t output. I hope this isn’t in their plans, geez!
Photoshop cannot know your intent, and 99.99 % of it is perfectly legal. Even if we only need to scan or photograph money for design or creative art requirements a few times in a year this is still inconveniencing the end user who paid good money for the package. BTW where I work we have another promotion campaign coming up for our client the store so PSCS will be coming off, and PS7 which we wisely kept hold of all the boxes will be re-installed.
Well there are many answers. Photoshop 7. Corel photopaint 11. Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004 my friend owns, a legal paid for copy BTW. None of these flag the New UK ten pound note which PSCS flagged. Hell i know a freelancer who is still merrily working along in PS5. And doing well.
I for one will be keeping a firm grip on any old software I have, and upgrades will wait at least 6 months to allow these ‘features’ to appear on the websites i frequent.
I now wait for those people on here who seem to love everything Adobe does, to give me grief for daring to be annoyed at my creativity being limited by Photoshop CS, part of the ‘Creative’ Suite.
Sorry about the ramble, but i think it is just wrong. If they need to check anything, check the final output, not the raw item on scanning. I would not have a problem of a colour printer refusing to print out and unmanipulated actual size image of a banknote, I prefer real money myself!
Dave, I believe you are on the right track in your statement
"If they need to check anything, check the final output, not the raw item on scanning. I would not have a problem of a colour printer refusing to print out and unmanipulated actual size image of a banknote…"
That way, the final output can determine, once a pattern is detected, whether or not it meets the legal size requirements. If so, continue printing, if not then stop and warn the user.
Yes, surely if they are smart enough to detect a pattern, they can check what scale it is at. And then this could be put on the controlling chip of the PRINTER, thank you very much! But it should be a pattern very hard to be duplicated by accident, but easy for the detection software to spot.
Is he free to express his opinion or not, even if his opinion is that everyone elses opinion is wrong?
VES, he certainly is, and I had not commented directly on his posts to that issue hitherto. Where he crossed the line is calling people names like "morons" and flaming them to the extent of explicitly accusing them of "wearing tin foil hats," as is popularly made a comment when one is denigrating the mentally ill.. THAT, my friend, IS likely a violation of the Community Standards here.
BUT. I’ll let ADOBE handle that, it’s not my call.. Since there was no onlist apology or retraction from Stuart, I did file a formal complaint with them yesterday about Mr. McCoy’s flaming and potential violation of the TOS.
Yes Bob I am new here. It is irrelevant that my newness has any affect on my statement of post deletions. And it also stands to reason that what has been a standard practice in the past does not mean that it will not happen in the future (basic logic). If you read any of the other topics of how this third-party Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group has influence in the marketplace, then it can be reasoned that they can also influence what is made public and what is not, i.e. applying pressure that can result in forum post deletions.
So please, do not use an ad hominem statement against my earlier remark.
Well I gues I’ll just have to have two machines: one isolated with older and/or bootleg software just to feel like I’m not being used by the ‘powers-that-be’ and a second on-line totally ‘legit’ machine with all the latest software so they do not suspect what I’m really up to.
As far a tin-foil hat, been accused of that, but what can you say about a comment that trite! Obviously they tried a tin-foil hat but it kept falling off because their head wasn’t large enough to carry it!
It is irrelevant that my newness has any affect on my statement of post deletions.
It is not irrelevant at all. When things like this happen, people come out of the woodwork to complain. Those posts don’t get deleted just because they express a view that goes against the management of the company. I was not trying to insult you. I was simply pointing out that this forum has never been censored with the exception of piracy links, obsenity and personal attacks.
Could they delete it? Yes, of course. They could kill the whole forum if they wanted to. It’s their website, afterall. Could it simply be marked read only when it plays itself out? Yes. again. But I doubt Len is going to do that only because someone will start another one.
Personally, I find this whole thing so paranoid that’s it’s laughable. Try to copy currency using a color copier. You simply can’t do it very well. There’s technology in there to keep you from doing it. Shouldn’t you be protesting outside Xerox and Canon headquarters.
It seems you people are more against efforts to stop criminals than you are in favor of actually stopping them.
And, IMO, the fact that this is now "big news" is not going to hurt Adobe or change the technology. If improvements can be made, they’ll be made, not because you want to copy a $20.00 bill, but simply because they can be made.
Accepted. Now, everyone, before this thing gets out hand, can we please keep it civil? Attack the views of others if want, but do it in a professional manner.
Personally, I find this whole thing so paranoid that’s it’s laughable. Try to copy currency using a color copier. You simply can’t do it very well. There’s technology in there to keep you from doing it. Shouldn’t you be protesting outside Xerox and Canon headquarters.
It seems you people are more against efforts to stop criminals than you are in favor of actually stopping them.
You miss the point, this technology in photoshop doesnt affect the counterfeiters only the user who needs to express his artistic ideas, or the designer who is creating a financial website.
Sure stop it at the printing end where the final resolution side and color can be determined, to stop it at the processing end is whats stupid and wrong.
Most people can understand why a direct Xerox of a note should be blocked, but not a digital representation of that note which is used for other uses.
It is the government code that is preventing me from running Photoshop CS, Paint Shop Pro, and any other program that contains that code.
Okay, for any of you who hate conspiracy theories, you are going to hate this message.
Yes, I am under investigation by the CIA and the FBI, and have been for 13 years. This is no joke. It all started when we went aboard a Russian tanker from Murmansk in August of 1991. That’s when the visits by the government and the tapping of my telephone started.
Yes, I have been to Moscow, and I did visit very sensitive places when I was there.
No, it didn’t help that in October of 1996 I brought Russian journalist Joe Adamov to this country, and that in order to get him here I had to place all of my phone calls to the FBI/CIA through NBC’s newsroom so they could listen to what the government told me, and it didn’t help that NBC news said that if Joe didn’t get his VISA that night that it was going to be the lead story on the NBC Nightly News, even ahead of the Pope’s visit, so the government gave Joe his VISA. (They didn’t want him doing the TV and Radio shows he was coming to do because of the eastern expansion of NATO, and the Bosnia thing).
No, it didn’t help that before Kosovo, I had friends in Serbia, one of whom was an American from Texas who is a professor at the University in Novy Sad, and that when I posted a few letters from him while we were bombing his home and University on my website, and the government told me that I was "destabilizing NATO".
No, it doesn’t help that when we stayed in Russia we stayed at the home of the deputy director of Radio Moscow.
No, it doesn’t help that when this government offered me a free trip to Moscow if I brought over documents for them I said that I wouldn’t spy for either country, their’s or ours.
This is not a figment of my imagination, it is all true, and there is a lot more I won’t go into because it is very very long. It was all also documented by James Russell Wiggins who was the former US ambassador to the UN, and the former editor of the Washington Post. It was also known by former senator and former defense minister Bill Cohen, and NBC news.
I have no problem putting and running any of the graphics programs containing the code on my laptop which has never had access to the internet, but I cannot load or run them on my desktop, which does. The only programs which fail to work are those containing the code. I was attributing this to Adobe’s activation code, but now I am not so sure. The error messages I get with each program are sort of the same. On PSCS after the ~e5d141.temp error I get an error saying that a required library failed to load. In PSP 8 I get a message saying that there was an error loading an embedded file directory.
I don’t remember what the problem was with ACDSee 6, but it was similar.
I am now going to try the latest version of Photo Impact to see what happens with that one.
Don’t believe it if you don’t want to, but I think this code is a lot more than it appears on the surface.
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.
It doesn’t just "generate a warning message". It STOPS you from using the image at all THEN produces a warning message. The article makes it sound like you’re warned but can then continue…
It doesn’t just "generate a warning message". It STOPS you from using the image at all THEN produces a warning message. The article makes it sound like you’re warned but can then continue…
Since I can run both PSCS and PS8 on my laptop, I tried opening the specimen images in both programs. While PS will keep running after the error message is closed, PSP 8 shuts down completely.
Yup, the same story that points out that Adobe is trying to help stop criminal activity and that some people are screaming about it on the internet.
If you’d like to carry on this crusade, feel free. This topic may even go longer than the activation thread (which I should point out, I started). But to read anything into those articles that even remotely hints that they will do anything about this (beyond bug fixes and performace issues)is, IMO, beyond delusional.
But to read anything into those articles that even remotely hints that they will do anything about this…
Something is wrong when Robert Levine and I agree. Going back about 350 posts, I was saying the same thing. I was surprised a few years ago when this kind of thing was proposed, then I forgot about it, never even making the connection that Adobe would actually implement it.
A few hundred million clock cycles here and there, and an occasional false-positive are small costs. "Progress" is apparently worth that. There is relatively little incentive to change back now, especially if (as was said way-up there) there are big sales to be made by having it, and only onesie-twosie sales to be lost.
I’m one of those insignificant onsie-twosie sales.
Let’s take a deep breath and be realistic. Bob’s right. Adobe is not going to change the software in any substantive way. The best that we can hope for is that Adobe understands the importance of being open and honest with its customers.
As successful organizations become larger, they tend to become more arrogant. Often this causes them to forget what made them successful in the beginning. It’s in all our best interests for Adobe to have its arrogance taken down a few notches and become more accountable to its customers.
When I say "all our best interests," I’m specifically including Adobe.
But we must also realize that it is in our best interests for Adobe to be "successful." They need to make money so they can continue to develop the software we depend upon. It’s when success turns into arrogance that everyone loses.
Our goal here should not be to bring Adobe to its knees. Our goal should be to give them a well-intentioned slap in the side of the head to bring them back to consciousness.
To put it another way. It would be good for Adobe to be humbled, but not humiliated.
At the very least, there are pockets of arrogance at Adobe. Most of us have encountered them. There may even be a culture of arrogance. It would be best if Adobe recognized this and took steps to change it. It would be ideal if they would even admit it to their customers (will never happen).
In any case, arrogance is a self-limiting behavior, as Solomon pointed out a few thousand years ago.
Careful Bob, povimage will turn you in for calling people delusional, you flamer you. Granted you’re spot on but that won’t stop these people from making bigger tinfoil hats. Doh, I did it again. Uh oh, now I’m in big trouble I guess. </sarcasm>
r_harvey,
There is no money to be gained or lost over this. I’m sure Adobe has a contract with the Central Bank and I’m sure money was part of the deal but it’s not some nefarious, under the table, cloak and dagger deal many here are making it out to be. It cost Adobe development time to implement the watermarking feature and the Central Banks paid for this time, simple as that.
Could this feature be better implemented? Sure. It should stop saving and printing, not opening or scanning. However, it does NOT stop people from being creative with a new US $20 bill if they want. Sure, I have to get the image from a different source or I can try a couple different work arounds but I’m still free to put Saddam Hussein’s head on the $20 if I want and PS CS won’t stop me from doing so. If you want to continue decrying this feature as an end to creativity, dispute this point. If not then either stop using PS CS or deal with the inclusion of, in my opinion, poorly implemented anti-counterfeiting measures.
The question I’d love to hear honsestly answered is how many here would have truthfully come across this problem during the course of their work?
FYI, you still scan in the currency by altering the scan scale – I was able to scan the new twenty by scanning at under 50% target scale and at 300% target scale, resolution didn’t seem to have an affect. So I doubt that a picture of your kid holding up a twenty will trigger the mechanism
I’d agree it should stop printing but to stop saving is almost as bad to stop the importing.
The question I’d love to hear honsestly answered is how many here would have truthfully come across this problem during the course of their work?
That’s not the point stuart, it’s where it could lead. What’s stopping adobe from incorporating the same technology on copyrighted images. It’s only a "contract" away, as you say.
You said originally that people were yelling the sky is falling when the activation hit. You said it’s just them protecting themselves. Nothing more will come of it. Now we have another "issue". You say te same. How many issues will it take for you to consider the notion that this is a bad trend for Adobe corporate and for it’s users? I don’t think the sky is falling, but I don’t see Adobe corporate to be any better or worse than many other of the "big media" companies. I had HOPED they would be, and in the sense that they do respond to user input when it doesn’t butt up against Corporate policy, maybe they are… for now. For now, it’s a trend.
As Arlo Guthrie said, paraphasing, "One and you’re crazy, 3 and they think it’s an organization. 50 people a day and friends, they’ll think it’s a movement."
….Or simply wait until some computer science type cracks this feature, which should be any minute now, and then apply said crack. I will not suffer the government to censor a piece of software for which I paid $600.
My question is whether it is true the next secret feature will be the same incorporate the same technology as the low-level X-ray technology that scans a body through clothing? Then they can send off to the government whether you have been dabbling in porn, especially if it is illegal as some states. Welcome Big Brother. Intuit activation. Macromedia activation. Now Adobe sneaking big brother features. Shame sham.
(1) Adobe needlessly hurt itself by not being forthright about the inclusion of anti-counterfeiting technology in Photoshop CS. The story was bound to come out. What was the point of compounding anger over the crippling of Photoshop CS with anger over Adobe’s being deceptive?
(2) How will law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies that use Photoshop CS deal with this limitation? Surely there are situations in which currency needs to be scanned. Is Adobe providing a special version of Photoshop CS to these agencies? Is there a way to disable the anti-counterfeiting function?
(3) Just how big a problem is counterfeiting anyway? The U.S. government asserts that counterfeiting is a low level problem because of the security features in U.S. currency. Some of these features — color shifting inks, security tapes that glow under ultraviolet light, watermarks in the paper — cannot be reproduced by an image editor nor printed by an inkjet printer or color copier.
(4) U.S. currency can be reproduced legally in certain ways. Photoshop CS is crippled in a way that prevents its users from exercising their full legal rights. That’s overkill.
(5) I’m quite content to stay with Photoshop 7 for some time. It does what I want it to do, so there’s no compelling reason to upgrade. Besides, thanks to its foolish decision to conceal its crippling of Photoshop CS, I no longer trust Adobe.
However, it does NOT stop people from being creative with a new US $20 bill if they want.
thats the only thing it does allow you to play with and that may not be suitable either
it doesnt allow you to play with £,e’s, krona, chinese currency (whetever that is)…to date NO ONE HAS BEEN ABLE TO FIND ANY INFO ON THESE CURRENCIES THAT SUPPLIES A WORKABLE ALTERNATIVE….is that clear enough for you????? one bill is slightly covered, the REST ARE USELESS NOW IN PS CS
that means any photos like Corel, Getty images etc offer may trigger this, any old photos i have used in previous jobs may trigger this, any of my clients photos may trigger this? HOW CAN I DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT IN PSCS….I CANT…please think a little outside the $20 box…its the only candidate for saying this system works and even then it severely cuts down your options. Why adobe think that just cos the US is covered then the rest of the world has to fall inline with something that isnt even law in the US, i dont know.
I wonder how the stock photo work will respond to this for starters……?
I am sure it has already been said, but I am a graphic designer and although very infrequently, I have had to scan US bills for some work, never reproduced in actual size, usually image altered, but was scanned into the system using Photoshop.
I was considering upgrading to Photoshop CS, but now I will do no such thing, until such time as Adobe removes this coerced feature from their software.
I also create 3D imagery and can see a need for using US bills in a given scene.
Regarding color copiers that prevent copying of bills, stocks, etc – its been around for awhile and I agree with this implementation, I do not want to see money copied. This being said, Adobe Photoshop is not a color copier, in most cases images scanned are edited, altered and enhanced in PS, not simply copied. To force prevention of scanning any possible image is tantamount to censorship.
Question to Adobe – does the World Consortium of Banks comprise a huge market area for its software. Banks do have their own graphic designers and may comprise some of the user market for Adobe software, however I can’t imagine that this is a majority market. How is it that the World Consortium of Banks has so much influence with Adobe, that they feel a need to cater to World Banks, and not cater to the vast majoriry of its software users?
Final point, one of customer jobs requiring a US $20 in the art was in fact a local bank!!! I’ll bet they aren’t in favor of the World Bank Consortium’s political power to force software companies to comply with a very narrowly focused concern.
Its time to consider moving to PaintShop Pro – unless they are as inconsiderate as Adobe is in this area.
Too late. It’s there to in version 8. There’s always Linux and the Gimp… assuming that SCO is unsucessful in destroying Linux. Maybe the World Bank is behind SCO too! (OK, that was a "the sky is falling" statement! <g> Where’s the danged roll of tinfoil.)
Hello? I guess no one reads anyone’s posts except their own…
I wrote a few pages back that my printer, a new HP, will not print images of the new currency, spitting out the same URL that Photoshop does instead.
Thus, there currently IS a mechanism for preventing the reproduction of currency. What Adobe has done, besides making themselves appear Big Brotherish and downright creepy, is simply overkill.
They are attempting to prevent what is a LEGAL activity in the United States. They are attempting, in John-Ashcroft-"Patriot Act"-Axis-of-Evil fashion to impede our rights as Americans.
This is not law enforcement, it is Fascism, and it should be fought, and fought HARD, by any American with a shred of sense.
Robert Levine is simply a crank for objecting to the use of the "…And then they came for me" poem, as it is absolutely right-on and appropriate to this situation. So is the metaphor of the frog slowly boiling alive in a pot of water as the temperature is raised, degree-by-degree. The Fascists are rising again – and just as in Germany in the 30s, the average citizen sees this as a good thing. There is great fear in the land, and Fascists ALWAYS rise to power by promising security in a fearful world.
it is Fascism, and it should be fought, and fought HARD, by any American with a shred of sense.
Fascism?? Uh, huh.
Robert Levine is simply a crank for objecting to the use of the "…And then they came for me" poem, as it is absolutely right-on and appropriate to this situation.
That’s me, the crank who finds equating the ignoring of the murder of millions of people with a small feature in a software package that nobody is forcing you to use, offensive.
The Fascists are rising again – and just as in Germany in the 30s, the
average citizen sees this as a good thing. There is great fear in the land, and Fascists ALWAYS rise to power by promising security.
I’d be interested in how many people who vehemently against this little feature would be in agreement with the above statement.
Wake up, people. Please!
I had my two cups of coffee today. I’m wide awake but absolutely dumbfounded at the paranoia that this is causing.
By saying "this is nothing, this trifling little thing" – I’m talking about the subtext of your post, not the literal text – you are playing into the hands of those who are slowly, slowly eroding our right to personal freedom.
I am not a counterfeiter, and believe it is right and proper to protect the value of our currency. But I believe strongly that this is absolutely the wrong way to go about it, and that it is symptomatic of a larger problem occuring in our society. I call ’em as I see ’em, and where we are being led is down the road to Fascism and complete control of every aspect of our lives by a corporate government that is not answerable in any way to the voice of Democracy.
My first personal experience with this sort of behavior – and the first time I realized how wrong it is – was back in high school gym class. Some miscreant in the group was acting up – stole another guy’s gym towel. The coach forced everyone in the group to sit on the floor, faces to the wall, for literally hours until one of us either confessed to the crime or ratted out our brother.
He had no right to do that, but none of us realized he did not, nor did we realize we had the power to simply stand up to the s.o.b and tell him where to stuff it. We allowed it to happen, and thus were complicit in the crime.
I will never, as long as I am alive, ever submit silently to Fascism.
Perhaps some of you see my thinking as an overreaction, but the plain truth is that there are much larger issues here than whether Adobe is preventing us from opening an image of currency.
Hello? I guess no one reads anyone’s posts except their own…
I wrote a few pages back that my printer, a new HP, will not print images of the new currency, spitting out the same URL that Photoshop does instead.
Old news. So do new scanners and copiers, and the drivers and software made by the manufactures of hardware. Next year, you won’t be allowed to watch a TV show that has pictures of money, either… why do you think they’re forcing digital TV on us? It couldn’t be for better quality. We’re in the eye of the storm here, people.
1. often Fascism A A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and _censorship_, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism. B A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government. 2. _Oppressive_,_dictatorial_ control.
Perhaps some of you see my thinking as an overreaction, but the plain truth is that there are much larger issues here than whether Adobe is preventing us from opening an image of currency.
Yes there are wider issues here, it starts with an image of currency where it ends is the really worrying thing.
You guys (Robert, Dave) totally miss my point, and of course this is what the bad guys are counting on. The person speaking the truth always seems a little strange, and that’s why it’s dangerous to do so.
Sea change is always slow – almost imperceptible. The nation – and the world – are incrementally drifting towards a condition of absolute control over every aspect of our lives. This is a very small thing we’re discussing here, but it is also an absolutely perfect example of the sort of thing I mean. This is the canary in the coal mine.
I edited the ellipsis containing the supposed Gandhi quote out of my post, so yours may seem a little strange in reply.
My reason for taking it out is that the line has been co-opted recently by leaders of the Democratic party, and I don’t wish to appear to have an affiliation, other than being on the side of the free exercise of liberty.
If you want to throw around the word "paranoia", what would you say about a company that is so worried about the possibility of a lawsuit that it bends over backward – beyond the letter of the law – in preventing its customers from using its product in ways the customers previously were able to – and that are, in fact, legal?
Regarding the technical absurdity of this approach. Select the image in the file browser and choose edit in imageready. Then select the option to open in photoshop, and it opens. Granted, it would convert from 16-bit to 8-bit, but the circumvention is there.
Now if that hole gets closed, cut your $20 bill up into 8 pieces, or 16, then scan each piece into Photoshop. One can then rebuild the currency to it’s original, as far as one’s eye can tell.
I would never scan money for the purpose of counterfitting it, but I can imagine me scanning money so that I could print a $20,000,000 bill with my child’s face on it, for our amusement.
I would advise Adobe to drop this approach since it is a waste of resources and there will always be clever ways to circumvent it. Put the onus on the illegal act, and that is at print time.
I dont see how anyone isnt worried that forgien code controlled by the post powerful group in society (the bankers) is introduced into your PC. You have no idea what it does, adobe cannot say what it does, you have no idea how far it goes to monitor your useage. But you do know its there watching, and waiting, for now only to block certain images, in the future to report back?
Oh but dont worry it will start as a statistics collection excersize and Robert Levine will bang on about how there is nothing wrong with adobe collecting information for Globaltech plc; hey its to protect us, righ?. Fastword a few years high speed bandwith and embedded face recognicion has built up a database of every person on every image passed thru Photoshop and Robert Levine will be there saying hey we are not the criminals it doesnt affect us. Until the day the bank decides to freeze his account because he has scanned a photo of his freinds one of whom is bankrupt and that makes him a credit risk.
This is my last post to this particular thread. It’s obviously not going to make any difference to Adobe what we say here, but I’m grateful that we have this forum to express our views where interested people may read them. For this, Adobe, you have my formal statement of thanks.
You are trying to do what you perceive is the right thing, and that’s commendable. It’s the whole world I’m upset with, not so much one software producer.
The question I’d love to hear honsestly answered is how many here would have truthfully come across this problem during the course of their work?
I photograph collectible currency for an auction catalog. Mostly coins (not yet on black list) but also banknotes. As this detection technology develops Im sure it will include older notes. Keep in mind that ALL US currency no matter how old is still legal tender.
FWIW:
Photographing prohibited/ censored image of new style $20 bill at an angle that is showing perspective or 3-D properties of the banknote will not prompt the CENSORSHIP message upon opening in Photoshop CS.
How much of an angle one needs for the PS not to trigger the Alarm I dont know (and Im unwilling to experiment anymore at this time). I will when my job calls for an image of this kind.
As a photographer it makes me sick that I even need to worry about this for reasons other than composition and lighting.
Im not in business of producing illegal images and I dont need/want to be told what and how to photograph by Adobe or anyone else. No matter how noble their intentions are.
What if some other influential special interest group convinces them to include filter that analyzes skin to fabric ratio in the photograph would you like that? Once you set the precedent there is no telling where it stops. I dont buy Adobes assurances that they wont act as Big Brother. They already are.
Its not this little feature Im worried about (I can beat it) it is the trend that disturbs me.
If you want to throw around the word "paranoia", what would you say about a company that is so worried about the possibility of a lawsuit that it bends over backward – beyond the letter of the law…
Who in this whole thing is not being paranoid (besides me)? Paranoia’s the reason banks and business and government want it, and why Adobe is implementing it, and why users are uncomfortable with it.
For the record, I never said paranoia. Nope, not once. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
For those who are hoping to set a record with this thread, on the Mac side they have a thread with already more than 700 posts. It’s about an OS it appears. (I didn’t take the time to read more than a couple of messages.)
As for right now, don’t buy the software. You see? It’s really that simple.
what if you’ve bought the software…will adobe refund us for the bits we dont want and would like to send back.
I think this thread is worth keeping going and keeping it on topic, if nothing but to at least provide sunbstantiation to the 10 or so international news sites that are carrying this story.
what if you’ve bought the software…will adobe refund us for the
bits we dont want and would like to send back.
They do have a 30 day money back period, but you’ll have to return all of the bits.
I think this thread is worth keeping going and keeping it on topic, if nothing but to at least provide sunbstantiation to the 10 or so international news sites that are carrying this story.
That’s fine, but I hardly think this will be news in another week. All of those covering the story are pointing out that Adobe is doing its part to prevent criminal activity and that they’re not the only ones doing it.
It would also be nice if the conversations stayed in this thread. I’ve noticed a few spam posts in other forums.
Run a test and see what happens when you photograph a new US $20 bill face on. Then take two more photos and see what happens when you turn it into origami and one crumpled up (two suggestions of possible artistic expression using a US $20 bill). So far the problem has only been reproduced with a scanner. If you have access to some Euros take some face on shots of them as well. I’d do this myself but I don’t have a digital camera, only a mini DV (Canon GL1).
<< All of those covering the story >> are printing the same inaccurate and highly Adobe-spun piece written by TED BRIDIS and distributed by Associated Press.
<< 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. >>
That is NOT all of what happens — the secretive technology prevents you from opening a perfectly legal image to use for perfectly legal purposes.
Run a test and see what happens when you photograph a new US $20 bill face on. Then take two more photos and see what happens when you turn it into origami and one crumpled up (two suggestions of possible artistic expression using a US $20 bill). So far the problem has only been reproduced with a scanner.
No its not just scanner. It rejects photographed images as well.
Almost everything I shot face on was rejected. It doesnt even have to perfectly parallel to an imaging sensor plane. One $20 bill, two or three loosely arranged one on top of another (dont need to be perfectly square), slightly crumpled.
Given enough angle (perspective) or crumple it quite a bit and it will pass. Bottom line Im not free to compose an image any way I see fit. Needles to say Im keeping both CS and PS 7 on my system let them sue me for that!
PS: I dont have any Euros at the moment but if you FedEx me some Ill be happy to try. Anyway Im getting sick of shooting these twenties got to run and exchange them for some brew. 😉
I know I promised I was done with this thread, but just an FYI:
I know about the ImageReady workaround, but…
If you scan a new $20 bill into PS 7 and save the image from there, it will open in PS CS without a whimper. This works with TIF and JPG formats – I haven’t tested any others.
I took the "safe" TIF image of the twenty into another app – Ed Hamrick’s Vueprint – and saved it from there as a JPG. THAT image will not now open in PS CS.
Conclusion? Images saved in an Adobe app are not scanned by the CDS routine, or else the Adobe file header identifies the image as "safe", which amounts to the same thing.
Dennis, when I tried this a couple of days ago it didn’t work. Did you scan at full scale? Changing the target document size works for me, scanning directly into CS.
If you scan a new $20 bill into PS 7 and save the image from there, it
OK,.. While this all feels Big Brotherish, I’m not ready to see anything broadly conspiratorial in this, and I doubt many others are either. It’s interesting that those who care about freedom are called things like "whiners," "tin foil hat wearers," or "un-American" when the incidence of people accusing ADOBE of some conspiratorial motive is low here. That doesn’t man, though, that it doesn’t FEEL creepy to have someone secretly steal a bit of your freedoms.
If because we care about The Bill of Rights, the Magna Charta, and the UN Guarantees of Human Rights, more specifically Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Speech, we are with a cheap rhetorical flourish worthy of Dick Cheney or John Ashcroft (and I say that as someone who stood as the REPUBLICAN candidate for State Assembly in my district), reduced to "whiners," or "tin hat wearers", I’ll PROUDLY toss MY tin-hat in with the following three fellow whiners (two Founding Fathers, and one of the greatest political/philosophical minds England ever produced):
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin
"Will the abandonment of your most sacred rights tend to the security of your liberty? Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessingsgive us that precious jewel, and you may take every thing else! Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel." Patrick Henry
"That the greatest security of the people, against the encroachments and usurpations of their superiors, is to keep the Spirit of Liberty constantly awake, is an undeniable truth." Edmund Burke
I could go on, but hopefully you get the point.
As for the danger of fascism.. To ignore a danger to liberty is to allow it to flourish, something today’s generations of young to baby-boomer Germans know particularly well – they realize how ignoring fascist beginnings can lead to a nightmare. Whether it is the Religio-fascism of Osama Bin Laden, the State-sponsored secular Fascism of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union’s own Statist Fascism masquerading as utopian socialism, fascism always represents a potential and real danger to liberty. It cannot be over-emphasized that the control of information is critical to the flourishing of fascism. It is true in each of the cases I mentioned and, conversely, that the free-flow of information, led to things like the freeing of Eastern Europe from the Soviet grip, the end of the Soviet dictatorship, and students marching in Tian An Min square. With the public at large, as with a computer, the output is wholly related to and limited by the input. Control the information the public receives and you control their perspective, and thereby their perceived range of appropriate actions.
It is a bit troubling though, I shall admit to find that the German Central Bank is leading this when I also read news like the following:
To close, I am sure there are some out there defending ADOBE who see me as some kind of whiney Liberal. Nothing could be further from the truth..
Prior to moving to the ARTS, I worked in politics and law. I’m a USAF veteran, I served as a Law Clerk, and finally as an EDP auditor and Computer Security expert. In that last role, I serve on the State of NJ’s cabinet-level Interagency Information Privacy Task Force, I also installed the computer security system at the NJ Department of Defense (National Guard) receiving a written commendation for that work, as well as having established the first comprehensive computer security policy in State Government. Finally, in that capacity I served on a National Security Agency Task Force, in addition to working with Treasury, and the NJ State Police.
Want some visual proof to to back these claims up?
Try the following links with images of me meeting with some people you might recognize.
And before anyone goes painting I and those who place a premium on Liberty as "liberals," I’ll add that not only did I serve as a Youth Coordinator to the Reagan Bush Campaign, in 2003, I served as the Republican Party candidate for NJ Assembly in my District.
Given all that, I think it is not only ignorant in the extreme to try and paint those who believe in civil liberties as a bunch of whiney tin-hat wearers, but it is an insult to those of us who believe in the principles of the Bill of Rights. Some of us, like I, served in the military and have willingly offered our own lives to defend these freedoms.. Just as today, whther for the wrong or right initial reasons, we, and other nations, have young men and women DYING daily for those same freedoms in Iraq and Afghanistan (I won’t even mention the many innocents and police/gov’t officials kiled worldwide for the sake of those same fredoms). How dare ANYONE question our seriousness, our sanity, or our status as law-abiding patriots, or our equanimity because we place a high premium on those freedoms for which our forefathers, and those in other nations who fought for the self-same Human Rights, shed blood?!
The sad fact is, governments (ANY government – as our forefathers understood) even with the BEST of intentions will axiomatically try to limit individual freedoms to make the job of Government easier. If you read The Federalist Papers (written by two of those forefathers, from opposite sides of the political aisle) you would know that is a recurrent theme and WHY the Bill of Rights was drafted.. More specifically, I saw exactly that pattern of privacy invasions upon private citizens by government employees repeatedly in my various roles. It wasn’t "law-breaking" individuals who had the most to fear, especially since they had already given up their rights to some Constitutional protections, but "law-abiding" state employees and private citizens, who found that other employees were using information to stalk them or to mess with their lives.
It’s not only the "bad guys" we have to worry about, sometimes it is the over-zealous "good-guys" with the best of intentions.
BTW: Here’s a famous "obviously liberal" quote that I should not have omitted:
"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!" Barry Goldwater
please note: for those more philosophically challenged, Barry Goldwater was not speaking of "justice" in the "law-enforcement" sense
Thanks a lot Adobe. Fuc8ing loosers I will NEVER buy another product from you. I am using ps5 and have had to scan in money before for 3d animations, to map onto the money in my 3d app for 3d characters to interact with. You guys fu8ing SUCK. I have close relationships with many decent sized studios(I own one myself) and I will do my best to turn EVERY LAST EMPLOYEE AGAINST ADOBE. You had better do something about this bulls8it.
PS. And I already have to wait long enough for all image processing, I do not need any more "microseconds" added to every little thing I do, that will probably add up to a few hours a month!
Thanks.. It also explains why I had some trouble during the election cycle.. Much of the public prefers simple answers that make them feel safe, not complicated answers and long explanations of the values at stake.. You see the same effect in the popularity of much of talk radio..
However, I digress: I normally keep my political and past professional background both confidential and out of the process (it generally has nothing to do with what kind of artist I am, or how successful my art is), but I felt it was relevant to the heart of this discussion and establishing some bona fides.
Fact is, ADOBE can get away with this as a private corporation. What worries me is the precedent this sets not only for future ADOBE product offerings, but for other corporations in cases where their power and products intersect with civil liberties.
The downside of ADOBE being a private corporation is that their sales and stock price are VERY susceptible to sales figures and bad press. IF this issue can become even a minor cause celebre for those espousing the protection of basic human freedoms and rights, ADOBE will have to reconsider.. If they don’t the stockholders will find new management..
Hear me ADOBE? You DON’T control all the press… Others in this world are credible spokespersons and have access to the press as well (as some other posters on this forum have ably demonstrated).. The cat may be out of the bag, BUT, your corporate arrogance, nay "hubris," may also have opened up a Pandora’s box you shan’t be able to shut.
10 STORE PS 7 20 PRINT TELL EVERYONE 30 KEEP TELL EVERYONE 40 PRINT ADOBE LOOK EVEN MORE STUPID 50 PRINT ANNOYED BY HASSLE THAT HAS TO BE EMPLOYED TO GET AROUND CDS 60 GOTO 20
When the orange-shifting 1270/870 EPSON inks came to light, EPSON first said nothing, then denied, and finally accepted responsibility.
That process took about four-months.
It took well over two months before even an IT industry publication would pick up the story..
Note that EPSON said over and over for nearly four months that they WOULD NOT offer refunds or make changes.. They eventually collapsed under the intense negative publicity and recanted. Consumers received not only refunds for printers but even for expended consumables, and EPSON lost millions of $.
This process has been going on for only two days and it’s already worldwide news. This forum and its members have achieved a HUGE amount already.
One suggestion. People should write and Fax individual members of ADOBE’s Board of Directors (especially if you own ADOBE stock). That’s one thing we did with EPSON that I don’t believe has found its way into the quiver here.
Sure, it’s easy for you to say, since you post useful, relevant information like that. What about the poor guy who can’t do any more than keep saying "When’s Adobe gonna answer this? Huh? Huh? Huh?" When you know that it’s not something they can simply throw-together, since they spent so much energy to convince themselves that they were right.
A solid exchange of information is a good thing; I suppose that’s what this forum is supposed to be.
I salute you for your dedication. Please keep up your well-directed comentary. But to a few others… oh, nevermind.
Again, thank you.
Edit: I have no Adobe stock, though I don’t believe Robert Levine can make that statement. As for Stuart McCoy, well, I’m never quite sure what he’s talking about, anyway.
povimage – 06:02pm Jan 10, 2004 Pacific (#581 of 588)That is exactly it!
(edit: i couldn’t get the limk to work but above is what i’m referring to)
Excuse me but i have been at a friends right now and had a few (!) beers, and I get a little uppity sometimes, especially when i have a bit of flu!
I am a firm believer in individual freedom, expression in whatever form and free speech (look this up you few guys, you know who you are) and expression wherever you may be.
All the time individual consumer and public rights are being eroded for the benefit of corporate, govornmental and finacial gains of the corporation and the governmtent. And i speak from the UK in the ‘EU’ (yuk, yew, or some other exclamation of displeasement) where the tight a** govermnents here are beginning to make the US look liberal!!
Adobe are now inserting themnselves into this, a bit naughty in my opinion. This is not big brother. This is big money. Damm the beer I have drunk!
Yet again must I alongside the others with some sense and foresight here reiterate infringement on creativity and freedom of expression for those who do not understand what these words mean? Damm how dumb are these people? Backing adobe to the end? What will be flagged next as an illegal image? I absolutely abhore this with my bones. So many people here are so unbelievably short sighted. It is not harming them, where is the problem? you will find out in Photoshop Cs 2, 3, 2006 or whatever release when all you can do is scan an image of your cat and not add coyrighted slogans to it. ooh yea baby!
Now go wild with your imagination while you can.
PS i am pi***d, so excuse me and patience please. But my brain still works 😉
PPS just so you know i am rational, this algorithm to detect banknotes could be implemented to detect banknote artwork at actual size on output or in the printer itself where it did not comply to legal requirements. This should be sufficiently easy for the guys and gals at Digimarc to detect and analyse the pattern and SCALE of a particular protected pattern (hard to duplicated by accident i hope) and stop any output device printing it. I am not in favour og counterfieting cash, just againt limiting the creativity of artists and designes like myself. I do have a project upcoming by the way for a client of ours which has some stores, which will most likely include the imagery of paper money (banknotes) manipulated so they are legal, so it is required in the design indutry sometimes to do this for you ‘hobbyists’ OK?
Dave
I await self righteous whinges and moans but i am teflon coated. hehe.
Edit: I have no Adobe stock, though I don’t believe Robert Levine can make that statement.
You have no clue about my investments and they don’t enter into this anyway. But for the record, I owned thousands of shares of Corel and none of Adobe.
PS i use coreldraw anyway, easier than ilustrator i have found so far. But Illustrator CS looks interesting. Where is that forum? Hey but i also like freehand mx so who am i? Bagpuss maybe? Ohh the mice will fix it…
Seems you’ve been rather misinformed about a lot. If you want have a debate, I’ll have a debate. But I’d appreciate you sticking to the topic. Making a statement like you did only ruins your own arguments because you can’t find anything legitimate to talk about.
But FWIW, I sure wish I had bought ADBE 10 years ago.
I too am glad that Adobe is helping me stay within the law. I bet that’s why PSCS is slow and why I can’t even process a panorama of eight CP5700 JPGs on a P4 HT machine with two gigs of RAM. It’s obvious that Adobe’s software engineers are using their powerful engine for something really important!
I was unable to copy a 50 Euro note but using my HP ScanJet 6200C at 1200 dpi I was able to make a fabulous 132.8mb, 16bit, 7405×3133 copy of a twenty dollar bill. The Crop and Straighten Photos function even straightened it out post scanning. Is that bitchin’ or what? Those Adobe guys are really helpful.
When I retire soon I’m planning on paying my bills the same way the U.S. government does. . . by printing money. Fortunately I own legal copies (unlike the $20 bill I’m passing around town) of PSE 1, PSE 2 and PS 7 besides PS CS. I’ll have plenty of software horsepower for my enterprise. By the Way, I think we know now for sure what the "CS" stands for.
If (when) I get caught passing the twenty I’m going to tell the judge that I thought it must have been an OK thing to do. Otherwise Adobe wouldn’t have let me do it. In today’s world somebody has to take responsibility for me!
Fie. I’m just shocked that something I read in these forums might be incorrect… and that information was in the Lounge, too, where only the best research is presented.
I’m adding here a post by Paul DeRocco on the EPSON list I caretake:
"There is one way to massively subvert this technology: encourage people to use the five-circle pattern that the software recognizes for other purposes–on t-shirts, on street murals, on signs, on flags, on the sides of panel trucks. Then, companies like Adobe will be flooded with complaints that they opening certain images yields mysterious error messages about copying currency, when there isn’t any currency in sight."
BTW: According to some reports, this algorithm is already in place on some EPSON and HP printers/hardware (I cannot personally vouch for this).. Which again begs the question, if it can and has been implemented at the "printer stage," why are the Central banks advocating, and why did ADOBE choose to, implement the algorithm much further upstream in the workflow?
Photoshop CS………….Does that stand for A. Counterfeit Scanner? B. Computes S-l-o-w ? C. Completely Substandard ? D. Customer Screwed ? E. All of the above! !
I think it’s interesting that It’s the new twenty. The govt is tacitly admitting that counterfeiting twenties makes economic sense. It used to be that creating a bill that would pass was so expensive that it only made sense to fake the 100. Now you can fake the euro and get a bonus against the dollar, too.
You miss the point, this technology in Photoshop doesnt affect the counterfeiters
Who is a counterfeiter? Is it a person who cuts off the end of a $1 bill and cleanly tapes the ends of two different $20s to it and passes it off to a cashier? Is it the guy who uses photocopy paper with an inkjet that he has had for nearly ten years to print out only a moderately decent looking bill that wouldnt pass any degree of careful examination but could easily be overlooked by a minimum wage cashier when sandwiched between a few real bills at a grocery store during a busy time of day? Or is it a person working in a lab somewhere that has a master engraver etching out an exact replica of a bill to be printed using offset means on convincing cotton for use by some crime syndicate?
Out of high school I worked as a manager at a McD’s and later for a financial institution and in my time at both places I came across a some of all 3. I can tell you that while the third poses a real and serious threat, the two screwball methods I mention happen a LOT more often than most people would probably imagine. In fact, the cheap inkjet approach worked really well with people in the tourist area that my fast food restaurant was located in because many foreign tourists wouldnt be aware of the fact that they were being given fake U.S. dollars that didnt even feel real to the touch. Imagine your surprise when your family is on holiday trying to order lunch only to be told there is a wait on your fries to then find yourself cornered by a few officers and an hour later $100 sorter on cash because a quarter of the money in your wallet isnt real.
I cant think of a single job that I personally have done in my 8 years of design that would have been affected by this but I can certainly see where the potential could be there and for that reason, I get why many of you are upset but I think some are treating Adobe in an unfairly harsh manner.
First off, I dont see how Adobe could in any way be making a major profit from all of this. Does someone on here actually believe that the CEO of Adobe met someone from the central bank in a dark alley where a suitcase of cash was exchanged for assurances? There may have been a financial arrangement that compensated Adobe for the time and effort that went into adding and testing the software (from which Adobe may have made *some* profit) but I would be shocked if it were anything significant enough that would warrant mention in their annual report. (even if it were done in the light of day as many posts seem to suggest it wasnt). Anyway, how much does everyone actually think it is worth to the central banks of the world to insure that they stop legitimate legal designers from using pictures of actual currency in their work?
Second, I find it difficult to believe that they somehow snuck this piece of code into Photoshop not expecting anyone to notice. I mean, if NOBODY came across this problem, wouldnt that make the whole point of including the code moot?
I guess that they could have plastered a big sticker over the front of the box and posted huge seizure-inducing animated GIFs on the product page of Photoshop warning people of the new restrictions but I imagine that they A: didnt see it as something that would affect most of their users and B: were afraid that drawing largely unneeded attention to it would whip before mentioned mostly unaffected users into an unneeded state of hysteria like what seems to be happening with this thread.
It is easy to say that the technology should be stopped at the output stage but that leaves only the manufacturers of modern printers responsible. What if I were go into work late one night and use Photoshop to send a picture of cash to 4-color plates to be printed? Of course, with the current version we are using at work I can still do this and we have actually had problems where stuff has gone to press with money displayed at actual size and accurate color so I know this at present could happen and I know that half a dozen or more people on here have already found workarounds to the Photoshop issue but the point isnt that you can find a way around it. The point is that it was put there to try to stop someone. Maybe it is just the 15 year old kid with a pirated and hacked version of CS but the casual counterfeiters, the casual pirates, the casual thieves and general casual law breakers tend to exist in larger numbers than most seem to realize. Look how many people are using the file sharing networks to trade music. How many of them do we think are doing it professionally? How many of them are even legal adults?
Sure, there is the slippery slope argument but how much water does that really hold? What has Adobe actually done? Theyve proven that it is possible to use this kind of technology in their software. Werent most of us aware that such technology existed in the first place? What about handwriting recognition software or barcode scanners?
Does this mean that they *could* prevent you from scanning in and using Disney artwork? I guess it does but how likely is that? I know for a fact that they use Photoshop in at least several of the merchandising departments of Disney. I also know that a lot of 3rd party outside companies (the one I work for included) do work for Disney using Photoshop.
I guess they could come up with some sort of authorization key system that would allow this all to work but if Disney, what about every other copyright holder in the world? What about fair use? If Adobe chose to become responsible for policing all of this wouldnt it make them liable for situations where the software didnt prevent what it was supposed to? Does this sound like anything that a company such as Adobe really wants to get involved with?
The problem with the slippery slope argument is that there is absolutely NO end to it. The what ifs last as long as someone has imagination to fuel them and in a discussion board full of creative types, that is a very, VERY long time. I mean, it could be argued that the inclusion of this software is the first step towards having to have someone from Adobe and/or the federal government one day sitting in the room with us to make sure we are doing everything on the up and up. Does that sound silly to you? Look at how Nazi Germany began. Slippery Slope! Get my point? For every major atrocity or removal of civil rights that starts with a butterfly getting killed in the forest, there are billions upon billions that dont.
In closing (for those who actually made it this far) I dont think this was some conspiratorial plot on the part of Adobe. I dont see how it could possibly have been since it was inevitable that this would be discovered. I also dont think it was a major play from adobe to get some sort of hush money or political favor from governments. I think it was more than anything, a sign of the times. The simple fact that people have in this very thread discussed how to get around it shows yet another sign.
Could a better job have been done with it? Probably. It looks like someone from Adobe has already admitted it isnt perfect and has at least stated that changes can and will be made if need be.
Should they have done a better job of letting the world know about this before it was discovered and reported publicly by a customer? Certainly but it seems like this is a case of Dilbert-like corporate stupidity and probably little more.
People have a legitimate right to be upset but I think that the focus needs to be on what Adobe has done and not what they could some day do. Maybe the combination of this and product activation is the first step in world domination for Adobe… or maybe it isnt.
Edit: Before anyone repeats anything that has already been said, Ive read 603 posts so far and I imagine that the post count in this thread would be a lot lower if people had bothered to read everything.
It is easy to say that the technology should be stopped at the output stage but that leaves only the manufacturers of modern printers responsible.
As the only way I can figure that you can actually SPEND any counterfit money is to PRINT it, the place for the check SHOULD be at the printer level, NOT the design level.
Okay, here goes. This may take several posts so be patient. First off, do you have a computer? Do you have software that uses image files? Do you have a printer or scanner attached to it? If so, you may be under surveillance. I’m not going to name specific names of people, products, companies, countries, or governmental and quasi-governmental organizations. You can draw your own conclusions as to identities.
A few years ago, a scientist got interested in a technology called digital watermarking. It is an image processing technique that subtly alters digital images using a complex mathematical model. When done, the image is altered in a way that is theoretically imperceptible to the human eye. However, the alteration can embed digital data into the image.
Here is a simple example of how to do digital watermarking. Take a 24 bit per pixel RGB uncompressed image file. Take an ASCII text string and divide it up into bits. Write some code to alter the low order bit of the 8 bit blue value in each sequential pixel of the image from left to right, top to bottom to contain the bits from the ASCII text string. You have just embedded a "message" into a digital image. Now write some code to read an image and extract the low order bits of the blue values and order them into an ASCII string. Run the image you embedded the message into through the new code. Voila! You have just decoded a digital watermark. Now start layering into your simple scheme things like a protocol for messages, operating outside of the RGB space, tricky advanced math techniques, redundant messages, statistical calculations to compensate for lossy images, etc. and you’ve got the real deal.
The scientist didn’t have a commercial use for this stuff initially. Someone got the idea to use the technology to protect digital images on the web from piracy and enforce copyrights. It came as a surprise to everyone in the fledgling company that the biggest customer for this was the porn industry. It probably shouldn’t have though. But porn is not what this is about.
There is a quasi-governmental organization whose members come from the central banks of some of the leading industrialized countries in the world. Now when I say central bank, I don’t mean a big bank you keep your money at like say NationsBank, USBank, KeyBank etc. Take a dollar bill (if you’ve got one) and read the top line on the side that has George Washington’s picture on it. That’s what I mean by central bank.
This quasi-governmental organization had a problem. People were printing and using their own money instead of using that that the quasi-governmental organization’s members printed. Now some people have always printed their own money. But in the past the people doing this were generally skilled craftsmen who had the financial and logistical support of certain non-governmental organizations. Even though this was not a new problem for the members of the quasi-governmental organization, the scope of it was new. Advances in thermal inkjet, scanner, computer, and software technology had made it so that just about anyone with a few hundred dollars could turn that investment into a lot more.
The quasi-governmental organization had formed a smaller organization to study this problem and look for ways of fighting it. Somehow, the smaller organization heard about what the scientist’s company was doing to protect the image copyrights of internet porn producers. One day they came calling to talk about their own "copyright" problem. Just in time too. The scientist’s company wasn’t going anywhere fast. Turns out that while their technology was cool, nobody wanted to pay for it. At least until now.
There is a quasi-governmental organization whose members come from the central banks of some of the leading industrialized countries in the world. Now when I say central bank, I don’t mean a big bank you keep your money at like say NationsBank, USBank, KeyBank etc. Take a dollar bill (if you’ve got one) and read the top line on the side that has George Washington’s picture on it. That’s what I mean by central bank.
This quasi-governmental organization had a problem. People were printing and using their own money instead of using that that the quasi-governmental organization’s members printed. Now some people have always printed their own money. But in the past the people doing this were generally skilled craftsmen who had the financial and logistical support of certain non-governmental organizations. Even though this was not a new problem for the members of the quasi-governmental organization, the scope of it was new. Advances in thermal inkjet, scanner, computer, and software technology had made it so that just about anyone with a few hundred dollars could turn that investment into a lot more.
The quasi-governmental organization had formed a smaller organization to study this problem and look for ways of fighting it. Somehow, the smaller organization heard about what the scientist’s company was doing to protect the image copyrights of internet porn producers. One day they came calling to talk about their own "copyright" problem. Just in time too. The scientist’s company wasn’t going anywhere fast. Turns out that while their technology was cool, nobody wanted to pay for it. At least until now.
Well, everyone at the company and the quasi-governmental sub-organization were pleased as punch by the results of initial tests. So they agreed on an open ended, multi-year contract to deploy the technology. Well, what exactly did deploying the technology mean? Remember my example: first comes "embedding" the digital watermark, then comes "detecting" it.
The embedding part involved studying how exactly real money is made (no pun intended). Then devising a way of incorporating the watermark into production printing. I won’t bore you with the details, but it was a formidable task that still has issues, some of which involve quality control of printing. You want to embed a "strong" enough signal in the printed material so that it can be detected even after wear and tear on the physical banknote. But you don’t want it to be so strong that it becomes obvious.
The detecting part is more complicated. First, think of who was being targeted. It would not be off the mark to say that teenagers wanting to print up a few banknotes on mom’s or dad’s computer so they can’t get into a dimly lit rave were a big concern. I am not joking. Next, think of what kind of tools these would be master criminals have to work with. Windows PCs and Macs. Inkjet printers. Scanners. Photo editing software. You can buy all these things in a package from numerous vendors worldwide for the local equivalent of a few hundred dollars. Central bank in a box. The first question an engineer would ask is: where, in the all this hardware and software, do we integrate the detection software? The answer? Ideally, everywhere. Operating system. Internet browser. Image editing software. Software printer driver. Printer firmware. Software scanner driver. Scanner firmware. Modems. NICs. Redundancy is a key concept.
All these avenues were explored. Some, mostly hardware, were dead ends due to technical issues. In order to do this integration, it would be necessary to work directly with the vendors of the products themselves. Predictably, most of them were underwhelmed initially with the prospect of doing this. They had enough problems keeping their own code updated and relatively bug free. The thought of integrating an unknown and very strange library that came from another country, did nothing to enhance their product, and was being backed by a shady quasi-governmental organization directly into their product without even being able to look at the source code was not appealing to their engineers. To say the least.
A carrot and stick approach was devised. The carrot was negligible, so on to the stick. The members of the quasi-governmental organization leaned on the product vendors. Failure to cooperate could result in losing the ability to bid for governmental contracts. Still holding out? So, you wanna be a tough guy, huh? Failure to cooperate could result in "difficulties" with importing and exporting your products. So they started to cooperate. But they were and are very, very nervous about the whole thing.
Oh, and everyone is nervous about word of all this getting out. Gee, haven’t you already heard all about this? No? Guess you didn’t get the memo.
Well, everyone at the company and the quasi-governmental sub-organization were pleased as punch by the results of initial tests. So they agreed on an open ended, multi-year contract to deploy the technology. Well, what exactly did deploying the technology mean? Remember my example: first comes "embedding" the digital watermark, then comes "detecting" it.
The embedding part involved studying how exactly real money is made (no pun intended). Then devising a way of incorporating the watermark into production printing. I won’t bore you with the details, but it was a formidable task that still has issues, some of which involve quality control of printing. You want to embed a "strong" enough signal in the printed material so that it can be detected even after wear and tear on the physical banknote. But you don’t want it to be so strong that it becomes obvious.
The detecting part is more complicated. First, think of who was being targeted. It would not be off the mark to say that teenagers wanting to print up a few banknotes on mom’s or dad’s computer so they can’t get into a dimly lit rave were a big concern. I am not joking. Next, think of what kind of tools these would be master criminals have to work with. Windows PCs and Macs. Inkjet printers. Scanners. Photo editing software. You can buy all these things in a package from numerous vendors worldwide for the local equivalent of a few hundred dollars. Central bank in a box. The first question an engineer would ask is: where, in the all this hardware and software, do we integrate the detection software? The answer? Ideally, everywhere. Operating system. Internet browser. Image editing software. Software printer driver. Printer firmware. Software scanner driver. Scanner firmware. Modems. NICs. Redundancy is a key concept.
All these avenues were explored. Some, mostly hardware, were dead ends due to technical issues. In order to do this integration, it would be necessary to work directly with the vendors of the products themselves. Predictably, most of them were underwhelmed initially with the prospect of doing this. They had enough problems keeping their own code updated and relatively bug free. The thought of integrating an unknown and very strange library that came from another country, did nothing to enhance their product, and was being backed by a shady quasi-governmental organization directly into their product without even being able to look at the source code was not appealing to their engineers. To say the least.
A carrot and stick approach was devised. The carrot was negligible, so on to the stick. The members of the quasi-governmental organization leaned on the product vendors. Failure to cooperate could result in losing the ability to bid for governmental contracts. Still holding out? So, you wanna be a tough guy, huh? Failure to cooperate could result in "difficulties" with importing and exporting your products. So they started to cooperate. But they were and are very, very nervous about the whole thing.
Oh, and everyone is nervous about word of all this getting out. Gee, haven’t you already heard all about this? No? Guess you didn’t get the memo.
I’m certain none of you has ever scanned in, downloaded, or tried to print out a banknote or any portion of one. Me neither. But what would happen if we did? If we were caught, we’d be in big trouble. The penalties for doing that in most countries are about as serious as the ones for kidnapping, murder, terrorism, treason, or similarly bad things. Way more serious than running a criminal conspiracy like Enron and bringing down the US economy. I suggest to you in the strongest possible terms that you not try it. Keep an eye on any family members or friends that might use your system as well.
If you ignore my stern warning and try it anyway, what then? How do you know if the detection software is part of your system? You don’t. It’s not exactly something that is advertised on a box spec. You may already have it. You may not. The next product you add to your system may install it. I can’t help you out on this one, your best bet is to assume it’s already there. So what happens if it is there and you do something you shouldn’t either on purpose or by accident (more on that later)? I’ve talked about embedding the watermark and detecting it, but I’ve ignored the software’s response to a positive detection of a banknote watermark. Those of you who are more technically oriented were probably already wondering about that.
A range of responses to detection were and are being discussed, negotiated, etc. Most of this stuff started before 9/11, so initially a lot of people were pretty timid about what could be done. Silently sending information about you and your system across the internet to some type of law enforcement organization for follow-up was considered a pretty strong response. Stopping the operation in progress along with a stern warning was considered a pretty mild response. The events of 9/11 altered a lot of people’s ideas of what a stern measure was though. For some others, it gave them all the excuse they needed to do what they wanted to do all along.
Let’s just say that if you are using your computer for something and your web browser pops up with the following URL, you may have a problem.
I’m certain none of you has ever scanned in, downloaded, or tried to print out a banknote or any portion of one. Me neither. But what would happen if we did? If we were caught, we’d be in big trouble. The penalties for doing that in most countries are about as serious as the ones for kidnapping, murder, terrorism, treason, or similarly bad things. Way more serious than running a criminal conspiracy like Enron and bringing down the US economy. I suggest to you in the strongest possible terms that you not try it. Keep an eye on any family members or friends that might use your system as well.
If you ignore my stern warning and try it anyway, what then? How do you know if the detection software is part of your system? You don’t. It’s not exactly something that is advertised on a box spec. You may already have it. You may not. The next product you add to your system may install it. I can’t help you out on this one, your best bet is to assume it’s already there. So what happens if it is there and you do something you shouldn’t either on purpose or by accident (more on that later)? I’ve talked about embedding the watermark and detecting it, but I’ve ignored the software’s response to a positive detection of a banknote watermark. Those of you who are more technically oriented were probably already wondering about that.
A range of responses to detection were and are being discussed, negotiated, etc. Most of this stuff started before 9/11, so initially a lot of people were pretty timid about what could be done. Silently sending information about you and your system across the internet to some type of law enforcement organization for follow-up was considered a pretty strong response. Stopping the operation in progress along with a stern warning was considered a pretty mild response. The events of 9/11 altered a lot of people’s ideas of what a stern measure was though. For some others, it gave them all the excuse they needed to do what they wanted to do all along.
Let’s just say that if you are using your computer for something and your web browser pops up with the following URL, you may have a problem.
You’re going to behave yourself. You’ve got your computer system locked away from the rest of the family. They can only use it when you are watching over their shoulders. You and your family are safe from the worst case scenario, right? Maybe. Maybe not. All software is evaluated in terms of performance. Different types of software have different performance criteria. A general set of criteria for digital watermark detection software might be:
(A) How fast does it operate? (B) How well does it detect watermarks in images that have really been watermarked? (C) How easy is it to defeat? (D) How many images does it report finding a watermark in that don’t really contain watermarks?
The product vendors worry a lot about (A). The quasi-governmental organization worries a lot about (B). The company that the quasi-governmental organization hired to develop this software worries about a lot about (A), (B), and (C). You should be scared to death of (D).
What if the family photo you scanned and printed just happened to have the right random sequence of pixel data to trigger a detection? What if the software malfunctioned because of some combination of incomplete specifications of input parameters, buggy coding, inadequate testing, and faulty integration? Can you prove later beyond a reasonable doubt (or whatever your local legal standard is for conviction) that your teenage daughter didn’t print out some pocket money even as a joke? Do you really want to go through the process?
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. There is one other tool in use by the quasi-governmental organization to protect the integrity of their "product". There exists an automated infrastructure that constantly scans the web looking for image files. When one is found, the watermark detection software is run on it. Positive detection results are recorded. I don’t know how they are used.
Although this is the last part of my story, the story itself is just beginning. Product vendors are still in the process of adopting this technology. More and more uses are being found for it. There are plans and in some cases signed contracts to implement this stuff in many more types of documents besides banknotes. Driver’s licenses. Passports. Travelers checks. Voter ID cards. Stock certificates. Worldwide.
This is absolutely a true, ongoing story. I would be very interested in hearing and participating in a discussion of it. Thanks for bearing with me.
You’re going to behave yourself. You’ve got your computer system locked away from the rest of the family. They can only use it when you are watching over their shoulders. You and your family are safe from the worst case scenario, right? Maybe. Maybe not. All software is evaluated in terms of performance. Different types of software have different performance criteria. A general set of criteria for digital watermark detection software might be:
(A) How fast does it operate? (B) How well does it detect watermarks in images that have really been watermarked? (C) How easy is it to defeat? (D) How many images does it report finding a watermark in that don’t really contain watermarks?
The product vendors worry a lot about (A). The quasi-governmental organization worries a lot about (B). The company that the quasi-governmental organization hired to develop this software worries about a lot about (A), (B), and (C). You should be scared to death of (D).
What if the family photo you scanned and printed just happened to have the right random sequence of pixel data to trigger a detection? What if the software malfunctioned because of some combination of incomplete specifications of input parameters, buggy coding, inadequate testing, and faulty integration? Can you prove later beyond a reasonable doubt (or whatever your local legal standard is for conviction) that your teenage daughter didn’t print out some pocket money even as a joke? Do you really want to go through the process?
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. There is one other tool in use by the quasi-governmental organization to protect the integrity of their "product". There exists an automated infrastructure that constantly scans the web looking for image files. When one is found, the watermark detection software is run on it. Positive detection results are recorded. I don’t know how they are used.
Although this is the last part of my story, the story itself is just beginning. Product vendors are still in the process of adopting this technology. More and more uses are being found for it. There are plans and in some cases signed contracts to implement this stuff in many more types of documents besides banknotes. Driver’s licenses. Passports. Travelers checks. Voter ID cards. Stock certificates. Worldwide.
This is absolutely a true, ongoing story. I would be very interested in hearing and participating in a discussion of it. Thanks for bearing with me.
I wrote the preceding some time ago. It looks like events have overtaken me. The recent redesign of US currency is including this technology. Obviously, others have named names of the organizations involved. Rather than alter my original text, I’ll add a "cast" list here:
Quasi governmental organization – Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group (CBCDG) made up of representatives of central banks of what is commonly known as the G7 countries
Central banks – US Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, Bank of Canada, Reserve Bank of Australia, <others>
National currencies involved – look to the list of countries, some are using it, some are planning to
Scientist – x (for now)
Watermarking technology company – Digimarc Corporation
A final caution, I know I’m taking a calculated risk in revealing these portions of what I know about this subject. I am not disclosing any of this for any monetary or personal gain. There is much more, including names of individuals from various organizations, that I am not yet ready to publish. If pressed I can and will.
For the usual reasons of wealth and power, the anti-democratic individuals and organizations behind this are out to monitor and control your lives. Their nameless ideology is actually Corporatism, aka Fascism. If you doubt me on the nature of this, ask yourself why it was all done in so clandestine a fashion. As of now, consider yourself warned – your computer, your software, and even your printer and scanner are likely spying on you and your family. With Adobe Photoshop CS, you have now seen the proof.
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." – Benito Mussolini
I wrote the preceding some time ago. It looks like events have overtaken me. The recent redesign of US currency is including this technology. Obviously, others have named names of the organizations involved. Rather than alter my original text, I’ll add a "cast" list here:
Quasi governmental organization – Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group (CBCDG) made up of representatives of central banks of what is commonly known as the G7 countries
Central banks – US Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, Bank of Canada, Reserve Bank of Australia, <others>
National currencies involved – look to the list of countries, some are using it, some are planning to
Scientist – x (for now)
Watermarking technology company – Digimarc Corporation
A final caution, I know I’m taking a calculated risk in revealing these portions of what I know about this subject. I am not disclosing any of this for any monetary or personal gain. There is much more, including names of individuals from various organizations, that I am not yet ready to publish. If pressed I can and will.
For the usual reasons of wealth and power, the anti-democratic individuals and organizations behind this are out to monitor and control your lives. Their nameless ideology is actually Corporatism, aka Fascism. If you doubt me on the nature of this, ask yourself why it was all done in so clandestine a fashion. As of now, consider yourself warned – your computer, your software, and even your printer and scanner are likely spying on you and your family. With Adobe Photoshop CS, you have now seen the proof.
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." – Benito Mussolini
Sorry for the interruption. This is in response to #594:
Seems you’ve been rather misinformed about a lot.
Cheap shot. Oh yeah, CS, I get it. Hah!
If you want have a debate, I’ll have a debate.
No want debate. Want nothing at all.
But I’d appreciate you sticking to the topic.
It was contextual, in reference to the post immediately above it. I try to read posts before responding.
Making a statement like you did only ruins your own arguments because you can’t find anything legitimate to talk about.
Pffft. I assure you that I could say several bona fide things. I don’t feel compelled to knock people who have well-reasoned, passionate statements to make, whether I agree with them or not. Repetition I’ll knock, fresh opinions, no. People wouldn’t be making these pleas if they didn’t care about Photoshop and privacy.
End of #594 response. Thank you for your patience. Please continue.
Talk about a day late and a dollar short. . .old news bud. . .and Digimarc tech has been in Photoshop since version 5.0. CS added the currency detection.
Talk about a day late and a dollar short. . .old news bud. . .and Digimarc tech has been in Photoshop since version 5.0. CS added the currency detection.
In another thread, I posted about how our organization refused to buy Adobe Premiere Pro, because it only runs under Windows XP, an OS that has all of the facilities mentioned in the above posts, built in in a manner that will allow Microsoft, the government and whoever else, to have control over your PC, while you get a distant secondary control.
Fight software fascism; don’t buy anymore Adobe products until the senselessness stops.
Hmmm.. the more I think about it, ADOBE and Kevin Connors were NOT careful enough in their statements hitherto. In fact they may have hung themselves from their own petard. Before we proceed further, I chose not to become an attorney, but, I do have some experience as a pro se civil rights plaintiff against one MAJOR opponent: <http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/privacy/ssn/legal.html#ferpa> I’m the "Krebs" in the aforementioned case, and we not only won that without attorneys, but garnered a published opinion, and established a new standing/cause of action. We did this in Federal District court, against the second largest law firm in the state (the largest Education law firm), all while I was still an undergrad.
Here’s the deal… I had been thinking over some posts on the various fora, as well as Kevin Connor’s statements upon behalf of ADOBE. A poster here, had said a day or so back in this discussion, that he couldn’t believe entrepreneurial Americans had thought of a way to turn this into a lawsuit. I didn’t originally see a potential cause of action, BUT as thoughts came to me during printer profiling (during which my mind wanders), there are at least two legal arguments to be made and a variety of possible outcomes that are potentially VERY damaging to ADOBE.
Here are the facts as I understand them:
1) Adobe has admitted they were approached by Central Banks (government actors) and asked to put this software code in their products 2) Adobe probably contracted with the Central Bank Group to install this code. 3) Adobe knew, or should have known, of the proposed EU legal action – the proposed legislation mandating such software. 4) Adobe representatives have stated they put the code there and purposefully chose to NOT to tell users/consumers it is there, even though they knew: A) some legitimate uses would be prevented by this B) they were not obliged under US law to so limit the software 5) Adobe, as the owners of the flagship imaging program "PhotoShop," already enjoys substantial bargaining power when negotiating licenses. 6) Consumers of this product have been hurt by being unable to accomplish legal actions with this software. 7) Importantly, consumers hitherto have used this product in many versions since US Counterfeit Law was changed in 1992, without any such restriction. 8) ONLY Adobe knew of this change and consciously chose to hide it from users (see Connor’s statements – THANKS Kevin!) 9) Adobe’s own EULA says users who sell/return PS CS relinquish any rights or license they had to prior versions. 10) If Adobe were a government entity or acting upon behalf of a government entity or entities, it would likely fail the appropriate legal test of least restrictive alternative as they could have instituted the check algorithm at the printing stage but chose not to whether: A) simply because it was less costly to simply incorporate the code provided by the CBG that way B) because it was easier to and or cheaper for Adobe to implement the "scanning" algorithm at that point of the workflow.
So, we have a situation where: Adobe chose to install code users could not possibly know of prior to purchase, which resulted in significant inconvenience to some customers. That could well be what is called in legal circles "unfair bargaining power" and bargaining in bad faith. (They hid a secret feature they admit they knew would hurt some users) At the same time they have established a EULA that gave them more unfair bargaining power by voiding the license if a user chooses to sell/return the upgrade. Either of these two issues, could both void any license limitations Adobe has established (which could have a situation where people could legally sell copies of the software at any price, or give them away even) AND/OR subject Adobe to actual damages in a class action lawsuit. The best named plaintiffs in such a lawsuit would be people like Kathi and those who have tried to use currency in a legitimate role via PS for which they could prior to PS CS, but now cannot.
Adobe may have, by virtue of bad faith, arguably placed those purchasers in positions where they suffered both breaches of their civil rights and financial harm to the extent of : the cost for the software, support costs incurred in installing and then removing, software that did not perform in accord with users reasonable expectations (in part based on earlier versions of the program) and what is know as the "warranty of fitness for particular use intended."
Adobe also could be found, by dint of the proposed EU legislation, not to be acting purely voluntarily, BUT to be acting vicariously as an effective representative of the CBG (as a reasonable party would decide it would be better to act pseudo-voluntarily and take some underwriting for the costs associated now, rather than be faced with a mandated policy, for which they would have to carry the costs completely independently) and associated governmental entities in its institution of the code. In fact, if as has been said by Adobe, they simply incorporated such code as provided by the CBG group, that case becomes potentially stronger. If courts were to allow private entities to implement secret actions which limited endusers civil rights at the behest of government actors, we would be opening a Pandora’s box where every time a governmental entity wanted to do something that violated an individual’s civil rights they could escape direct and legal responsibility simply by contracting said actions out to a third party of a non-governmental nature. Therefore, it is likely that a reviewing court in the US would force Adobe to implement the least restrictive alternative (i.e. one which impacts legitimate users the least), just as it would apply to a governmental entity when it is engaging in actions violative of an individual’s or group’s rights under the First Amendment.
So, users may have potential grounds for some real lawsuits against Adobe on this count. If this were filed as a class action lawsuit, ADOBE could be in deep kimchee, given its number of users/consumers. Were users/consumers to lose such a lawsuit, they could only be held liable for costs or damages to Adobe AFAIK, IF and only IF the complaint were found to be basically frivolous on its face. Even were such a case lost by any potential plaintiffs, Adobe could be embarrassed by whatever turns up in discovery and becomes public in an open and public court proceeding – things like the bargaining process with CBG, the contract reached, how it contracts with third parties for code or feature-sets, etc. – things Adobe would prefer remained proprietary information Even the filing of a lawsuit alone could make Adobe reconsider its position, AND if Adobe lost, Adobe stockholders could potentially bring a lawsuit against Adobe’s CEO, CFO, and its Board of Directors for Reckless and Negligent management. Given the fact that this is already NEWS worldwide (as demonstrated by the multiplicity of publications that have chosen to run pieces on it), the filing of a suit could have major effects upon Adobe and its management, as seen by BOTH its stockholders, and in the sense of any corporate goodwill it enjoys in the marketplace. That could really kill their stock value enough that stockholders could conceivably decide to dump the current board and upper level management en banc. In any event, win or lose a suit on this would almost definitely become significant mainstream NEWS.
OK, if anyone wants to head down this route, I’ll try and find an IP or Civil Rights attorney who may be willing to take this case on contingent basis. I would suggest e-mailing me directly on this at: , and place the words "ADOBE lawsuit" in the subject line, since after I’ve now suggested legal action, I am unsure how much longer this thread will exist and/or I shall be able to post here.
This thread is missing the entire point, it isn’t about counterfeit detection. It is simply WHY DIDN’T ADOBE INFORM THEIR CUSTOMERS OF WHAT THEY DID TO OUR PURCHASED SOFTWARE? Had that been done, there wouldn’t have been half the problems.
And I really like the Adobe "spin" now that they are in hot water. "Adobe is a hero for taking steps to reduce counterfeiting". Yah, sure and I hope your next quarter’s financial indicate your current customer acceptance of that.
Okay, here goes. This may take several posts so be patient. First off, do you have a computer? Do you have software that uses image files? Do you have a printer or scanner attached to it? If so, you may be under surveillance. I’m not going to name specific names of people, products, companies, countries, or governmental and quasi-governmental organizations. You can draw your own conclusions as to identities.
A few years ago, a scientist got interested in a technology called digital watermarking. It is an image processing technique that subtly alters digital images using a complex mathematical model. When done, the image is altered in a way that is theoretically imperceptible to the human eye. However, the alteration can embed digital data into the image.
Here is a simple example of how to do digital watermarking. Take a 24 bit per pixel RGB uncompressed image file. Take an ASCII text string and divide it up into bits. Write some code to alter the low order bit of the 8 bit blue value in each sequential pixel of the image from left to right, top to bottom to contain the bits from the ASCII text string. You have just embedded a "message" into a digital image. Now write some code to read an image and extract the low order bits of the blue values and order them into an ASCII string. Run the image you embedded the message into through the new code. Voila! You have just decoded a digital watermark. Now start layering into your simple scheme things like a protocol for messages, operating outside of the RGB space, tricky advanced math techniques, redundant messages, statistical calculations to compensate for lossy images, etc. and you’ve got the real deal.
The scientist didn’t have a commercial use for this stuff initially. Someone got the idea to use the technology to protect digital images on the web from piracy and enforce copyrights. It came as a surprise to everyone in the fledgling company that the biggest customer for this was the porn industry. It probably shouldn’t have though. But porn is not what this is about.
This thread is missing the entire point, it isn’t about counterfeit detection. It is simply WHY DIDN’T ADOBE INFORM THEIR CUSTOMERS OF WHAT THEY DID TO OUR PURCHASED SOFTWARE? Had that been done, there wouldn’t have been half the problems.
And I really like the Adobe "spin" now that they are in hot water. "Adobe is a hero for taking steps to reduce counterfeiting". Yah, sure and I hope your next quarter’s financial indicate your current customer acceptance of that.
A very indepth dissertation you have there Keith. Best of luck with your efforts.
No-one wants Adobe to go under but they must understand its not their job to remove our rights and freedom of expression.
Maybe this thread is gone soon, so thanks to everyone who has contributed ( on all sides of the debate) it’s been quite a ride. I have certainly learnt alot from it.
Before anyone says a thing to the contrary, or makes wild accusations, I don’t want, nor shall I accept a dime from this effort if a lawsuit is chosen by those who believe they have been injured.
For me, this is NOT about getting money from Adobe, it is about waking them, out of their apparent incipient arrogance, and fighting their and the CBG’s attempt to erode the rights of individuals around the world by use of the very self-same tools they would use – the force of LAW.
if a lawsuit is chosen by those who believe they have been injured.
I dont believe this feature belongs in Worlds leading image editing software as a matter of principle.
Lets not get ridicules though. To be injured by it one would have to photograph or scan every $20 bill released by Federal Reserve, open it in Photoshop CS using one of many workarounds, claim injury to his/her wrist from couple extra mouse clicks per image and admit to extreme stupidity for not recording an Action to do so.
I’ve already decided that if I were to be a part of any legal action related to this, in ANY way, I shall not personally accept any financial award. In fact, I herewith pledge that were I entitled to any such remuneration, I shall turn over any such funds to arts oriented 501(c)3 charitable/non-for-profit institutions.
Phosphor writes "A visitor to the Adobe Photoshop-for-Windows Forum (registration required to post, can log in as guest) has described a curious ‘feature’ with Photoshop 8 (also known as ‘CS’). Seems this latest version of Adobe’s flagship product has the built-in ability to detect that an image is of American currency. Something has been built into Photoshop’s core coding that can detect something in images of currency and will prevent the user from opening the file. Apparently it will also do this with Euro notes; info on other currency is pending." According to other online reports, the latest version of Paint Shop Pro has similar restrictions, also known about since late last year.
You solidified a number of legal issues into a concise concept.
Now, let’s find a hungry lawyer.
I doubt that anyone really wants to drive Adobe into the ground. Just wake them up to their customer base. Don’t pull this sh** on us, we don’t appreciate it! And Adobe’s spin on the explanation is wonderful, "why Adobe are heros for leading the way in forgery prevention". In any case, we should just stop supporting Adobe products for one or two business quarters, that’s enough to get rid of the fellows with these great ideas.
I don’t think I personally have a strong claim here.
My claim would be likely reduced to some putative future-oriented potential direct damages stemming from a limitation of my rights today, or an anticipatory chilling effect. I’ve never used currency images in my own art, and I would be pushing the truth to say, I could anticipate foreseeably doing so. I think the best plaintiffs would be individuals who have used currency in prior art, or those who work for/with entities that use currency in their publications, advertising, or what have you.
I am more than willing to provide ideas, verbal backing, written support, even to serve as an initial common point of contact for potential plaintiffs, whatever I can, however, my inclusion in any suit as a plaintiff would likely weaken it, not strengthen it.
Accordingly, since this is NOT about me, but about what ADOBE has done, I would suggest that others take what ideas I have presented and run with them as you see fit. I might even suggest bringing any potential action in the 9th Circuit, as they tend to be better IMHO at seeing" issues brought before them as cases of first impression.
Additionally, I would venture that the vast majority of potential plaintiffs would be willing to forego a resort to legal action if ADOBE publicly pledged to:
1) alter the implementation of CDS, so that it ONLY restricted actions illegal in the host country, or
2) allowed one to continue actions which it could log after receiving the warning, or
3) even if the implementation of the code were restricted to only affecting documents sent from PS to the print driver."
However, I can’t speak for others, only myself.. Thoughts?
1) I have moved one or two new Topics to join this one – better to keep all posts concerning this to a single topic rather than spread around the Forum.
2) This Topic has now largely served its purpose which was to publicise users’ feelings about this and bring it to the attention of a wider public, something which it has been very successful in doing.
However, it really is clogging up a forum which is designed to help users with technical problems, and I really think it is time that further conversation on this topic was carried out in the Photoshop Lounge, particularly as it is a cross-platform issue.
Consequently, I am intending to move this Topic to the Lounge as of tomorrow morning, and I will post a link to that topic in a new Topic here pointing to this moved Topic.
I can understand that Adobe want’s to avoid problems with the american law. It’s the only country in the world where the maker of a microwave oven can be sued if someone wants to dry his dog in it – so Adobe could probably be sued by someone who is too stupid to make the difference between real and fake money and wants to put the blame on someone else. What I can’t understand is that international customers have to obey the same stupid restrictions. Our money has holograms on it to make it secure, so no scanner will ever be able to capture a bank note. If the US authorities have problems with money security perhaps they should make the money more secure instead of forcing everyone to comply to stupid regulations. But this goes all too well in the control-freak mentality of the patriot act.
As the only way I can figure that you can actually SPEND any counterfit money is to PRINT it, the place for the check SHOULD be at the printer level, NOT the design level.
Think about this scenario. You’ve just spent three days on a image and now when you to print it, it doesn’t work.
Just a little food for thought on a cold New Jersey morning. 🙂
As the only way I can figure that you can actually SPEND any counterfit money is to PRINT it, the place for the check SHOULD be at the printer level, NOT the design level.
Think about this scenario. You’ve just spent three days on a image and now when you to print it, it doesn’t work. ============================
In response: If this route is to be used, then a warning when the image is first pulled up for editing and then an error message if the image violates certain allowable standards as it sent to print would work (I am an application developer so it does help with user interface insight).
I think I’d vote against that for now. It’s going to be a hot topic for at least a week a two and someone is bound to simply start another thread here.
Of course, it’s your call. But even moving it to the lounge will disappoint those who I think actually were hoping to have it killed so they could really scream censorship.
Think about this scenario. You’ve just spent three days on a image and now when you to print it, it doesn’t work.
OK. So thinking about it, how about producing a warning (only) message on input and then let the printer decide if it’s been modified enough to pass the test. The test for "safe to print" DOES NOT belong at the image aquisition stage. (Ah, I see goldfrost has stated this already. oh well, it’s already typed. it’s getting posted! <g>)
Consequently, I am intending to move this Topic to the Lounge as of tomorrow morning,
GAK! NO! THEY’LL GET MUD ALL OVER THE NEW CARPET!!!
I think I’d vote against that for now. It’s going to be a hot topic for at least a week a two and someone is bound to simply start another thread here.
I have to agree with Robtert Levine here, this thread could easily have been locked along time ago. So well played moderators you are doing a good job.
I’m just curious what would happen if I used "Kill the bushes in front of my door" in my project window of Photoshop? Would the Secret service show up at my door?
When does this type of thing go to far?
Why wouldn’t it be better to get printers (or Photoshop) to print a "FAKE" watermark on the bill instead of this tactic? Didn’t think of that?
"In addition to my previous challenge, here’s another one. Find me another company that would allow what’s going on here WITHOUT shutting it down.
Quark killed their user forums because their software was so bad they didn’t want anyone complaining on their own website."
This reinforces my point – THEY DON’T CARE !!!! If they were worried about the consequences they would do or say something. They have said something but it lacks substance. So they’re waiting till it burns itself out and goes away. First step is moving it.
I think they care. They just aren’t going to do anything to appease a few people screaming here. And yes, it’s only a few. If you expect to see people protesting in the street outside Adobe’s headquarters I think you’re going to be disappointed.
Take a look at the activation thread. Over a thousand posts. Guess what. It wasn’t killed, it wasn’t moved. And activation stays.
Do you think they put this into the software without thinking about it?
If they were worried about the consequences they would do or say something. They have said something but it lacks substance.
It didn’t lack substance at all. You’re only problem with it was that it didn’t say, "we’re sorry, there will be a patch tomorrow to remove it."
They’re not worried about any consequences because in the grand scheme of things, there won’t be any. Look out that fellow Nagash who’s been screaming in this thread. Go look up his posts in the activation thread. He swore up an down he’d never buy software with activation.
Now he shows up here complaining about something he didn’t even know was there and acknowleges he bought the software. IMO, In two weeks nobody will even be paying attention to this anymore.
So they’re waiting till it burns itself out and goes away. First step is moving it.
Well, you saw my recommendation to Len. I think it should stay here, but yes, it will burn itself out, just like the activation thread.
Now, since you think I’m an apologist for the company, I’ll repeat what I said a few days ago. I think a disclaimer should have printed on the box right next to the activation notice informing users that this feature was there. They didn’t for reasons only known to them. I just don’t think the world is coming to an end of this.
They’re not worried about any consequences because in the grand scheme of things, there won’t be any.
Bob,
It’s not so surprising that you believe this, but that you seem to REVEL in the dictatorial power of huge corporations over individuals. Still; while you may be right short and medium term, I hope you’re wrong long term. The Israeli government has just bumped Microsoft:
Seems that Billy’s line is that Open Office is pathetic – about equivalent to Office 97. Well, I’m still using Office 97. I’ll happily pass on the worthless bloat and activation benefits of later offerings. More important; many huge companies feel the same. I know one 10000 plus employee UK company using a PREVIOUS version of Office!
Adobe is lucky, in that digital photograhy had a late year zero, but the individuals and the worms and the mavericks will work away until one day folk will say ‘Hey! Acme Graphicshop does all I need; it’s only $4.99, AND I can sock to those arrogant dictators in Adobe’.
The public relations skills of the Adobe representatives here are fascinating to observe!
No, the world never comes to an end over individual bits and pieces. It is the way that these bits and pieces collect to produce a suprising result. If you don’t believe it go study Chaos.
An outcome from all this may not result in Adobe removing the offending software, but you might want to think about the larger scale resulting from many people who never heard of Adobe, responding in their own way to the event.
It’s not so surprising that you believe this, but that you seem to REVEL in the dictatorial power of huge corporations over individuals.
I’m not reveling in anything. I’m simply a realist. There’s no dictatorial power here. You don’t have to use Photoshop. But consider that Paintshop Pro has the same technology and you have to realize that this is industry wide event.
I posted something in the Corel newsgroup yesterday since they just announce the new version of Corel Draw and PhotoPaint. I’ll be interested to see if there’s anything in there.
Seems that Billy’s line is that Open Office is pathetic – about equivalent to Office 97.
Nothing wrong with Office 97 for the majority of users. Most of my clients are still using it so I have to turn off the advanced features in the newer versions.
Adobe is lucky, in that digital photograhy had a late year zero, but the individuals and the worms and the mavericks will work away until one day folk will say ‘Hey! Acme Graphicshop does all I need; it’s only $4.99, AND I can sock to those arrogant dictators in Adobe’.
Some think that the gimp will do just that, for even less than $4.99. But again, if you’re going to bash Adobe, you need to bash EVERY company using this type of technology. That includes JASC, Canon, Xerox and I’m sure others.
And I’ve read the arguments about copiers being different but that’s nonsense. Think of the person who needs to make a flyer for his local church. He has no computer skills but there’s a color copier in the office. He needs some bills copied for his design so he get’s the boss’ permission to use the company copier and lo and behold it doesn’t work.
So, stop thinking selfishly and get youself over to Canon and Xerox websites and blast away.
The public relations skills of the Adobe representatives here are fascinating to observe!
Keep in mind this forum wasn’t designed to be a PR tool. It’s a tech support forum for users to help other users. The Adobe reps who visit here do so on their own for the most part. How many other companies have sites like this where the engineers actually take part?
As for me. I got a whole bunch of help when I was starting out here. I enjoy giving some of it back. As for this topic, I just love a good debate as long as it’s kept civil and people respect one another.
I never actually tried to scan in money until this past week. So in reality, other than the fact that Adobe added a censorship feature without telling anyone, it isn’t actually a problem for my work. I just hope the trend doesn’t continue. But I was able to verify that Adobe CS does indeed censor images of $20 including scaled copies that are created off a scanner or a digital camera (RAW) and that the workarounds through imageready and illustrator do indeed give a path to getting images into PS despite the restriction. A Epson 2200 apparantly doesn’t have any hidden "feature" that prevents printing. So now I am well on the route to being a counterfitter. How do you get that paint that looks green at one angle and gold at another? Nevermind. At this point, the censorship is actually just a minor irritation – mostly related to the principle of the matter. I would wager that at this point, noone really thinks that the actual limitation is a big deal. They just don’t want the process to be developed into censorship of more important issues. Right?
He’s the artist who has been making phoney bills since the ’80s and using them as art pieces to barter for goods. He always makes VERY clear to people that the "money" is "fake" and simply art. Collectors of his bills actually pay a premium for pieces bought "in the wild" as opposed to gotten from JS directly.
I saw a piece on him on PBS a few years back, very interesting.. and yes, the FEDS have gone after him in the past.. Interestingly, his pieces, as required by US Law are all one sided only..
What makes you think I ‘disagree’ with any of them? I have expressed no opinions on the matter. That’s not the point at all.
The point is that this forum is here to help folks with technical problems. No-one here can help folks with the fact that PSCS won’t open some currency images, in which the program is working as designed. The lounge is the place for comments / opinions.
I think the scariest thing to think about in all of this is not whether Adobe put the code in or not, but what the feds threatened to do to them if they *didn’t* add the code. I’m sure the last thing Adobe wants to do is support code like this that will undoubtedly be a maintenance hassle and not add any value to the program. So my bet is that they were forced to do it – OR ELSE.
The OR ELSE part is what I’m most concerned about.
What makes you think I ‘disagree’ with any of them? I have expressed no opinions on the matter
You beat me to it! I came back to retract the statement. That’s the one I’ve made in this thread that I regret. Come to think of it, I can retract it, so I will.
2) ADOBE DOES deserve credit for allowing this thread to run so long. BUT, Big companies have competing political interests and factions of their own. I dunno how much longer the legal beagles will let this run.
3) Re your comment:
I think they care. They just aren’t going to do anything to appease a few people screaming here. And yes, it’s only a few. If you expect to see people protesting in the street outside Adobe’s headquarters I think you’re going to be disappointed.
PMA and DIMA are coming up in VEGAS, <http://www.pmai.org/> if this is still active by Valentine’s Day, it could be an interesting trade show in and around the ADOBE booth.. People might just head over to the ADOBE booth and ask about this in front of potential consumers..
2) ADOBE DOES deserve credit for allowing this thread to run so long. BUT, Big companies have competing political interests and factions of their own. I dunno how much longer the legal beagles will let this run.
3) Re your comment:
I think they care. They just aren’t going to do anything to appease a few people screaming here. And yes, it’s only a few. If you expect to see people protesting in the street outside Adobe’s headquarters I think you’re going to be disappointed.
PMA and DIMA are coming up in VEGAS, <http://www.pmai.org/> if this is still active by Valentine’s Day, it could be an interesting trade show in and around the ADOBE booth.. People might just head over to the ADOBE booth and ask about this in front of potential consumers..
Re "Maybe we should gather people": I agree that a concerted effort is in order; however, I wouldn’t rely on the majority of the types of individuals that attend PMAI to join in – and I wouldn’t rely on them to care.
On Friday, I posted links to the first news items – as well as reference to this thread – on two very major photography related forums (dpreview and fredmiranda). To say that I was surprised at the majority reaction was an understatement.
Photo people, in majority (it seems), are not focusing on the "lack of disclosure" portion of this equation – despite repeated efforts by those of us who are looking at this from a more "broad spectrum" view. They’re focusing on the "scanning the cash" portion. Narrow focus, narrow minds, "G-D bless Adobe for keeping *you and me* honest".
With that said, I’m not sure if PMAI is a viable venue. ‘Trouble is, I can’t think of one that’s coming up in the near future that would be.
Hmmmmmmm…
eileen
So, yeah, I don’t know that PMAI is quite the right venue.
I’m a photographer, techie, and a ":big picture" guy, not a great freehand digital artist like many here are.
Just a thought about a potential viable form of making opinions clear and visible.,,
What if someone were to combine the ADOBE logo, the PhotoShop eye, and $$ into a single composition that was clear political and social commentary. On trademark grounds you’d certainly be safe, I think.
Toss a note on the front somehow referencing the CBG/CDS stuff.. along with the Ben Franklin and/or Patrick Henry quotes on the back, and you could have a strong and attractive message in a unique vehicle – in the very vein that artists are best, conveying something visually and emotionally (btw, I’d go with black t-shirts if anyone decides to move with this)
One could sell t-shirts with such imagery on it at trade shows, or anywhere artists, and techies gather, etc.
I offer this idea as public domain, anyone who likes it feel free to run with it non-exclusively. It could be interesting to see the various ways this could be interpreted. Heck, we could even hold a competition and sell t-shirts or mugs of many of the submissions – if we went that way, it would be my hope that everyone would be amenable to not making any personal profit off something like this.
If the original pieces made for interesting art, we could even do a gallery show somewhere on the theme…
Well I read the Wired article where it says that a "Warning" message is displayed when a user tries to import a currency image.
This is incorrect, surely? As a Warning message normally lets you continue what you were doing. This is more of an Error message, preventing you from continuing.
I’m also curious as to how Adobe plan to deal with people who DO have authorisation to use such images? I’ve applied to the Bank of England for permission to use images.
It might be useful if everyone applies to their national bank, and indeed other banks as well, to apply for permission. It’s a simple process, and the Bank of England can be applied online (http://213.225.140.30/banknotes/repoappform.htm)
Anyone who manages to obtain permission should then contact Adobe requesting them to patch their software to allow them to use the images, in accordance with their permission.
After all, the ‘warning’ generated by Adobe says that "this application does not support the unauthorized processing of banknote images."
If you have authorization, why should Adobe prevent you using the software within the limits of your agreement?
Do you think they put this into the software without thinking about it?
Does this event show any thread of thought or consideration.
I for one am affected…its not often but I have and hope to continue producing images for some of my financial market clients. I too have had permission to use the artwork from the Bank of England, they being one of my clients through an agency. I dont seem to remember them ever mentioning that they had notes I should use.
I wasn’t even aware of this, in fact I guess it’s been news to most here…so it does follow that many Photoshoppers don’t scan in currency for work or play.
I’m going through the 2 CD set from Software Cinema on the new features in CS. It’s really great, so the fact that I can’t scan currency in directly…is not much more of a bump in the road than a store requiring me to check my bags with them.
It’s not a big deal…and not even remotely enough to make me feel like packing and shipping my upgrade back 🙂
"Talk about a day late and a dollar short. . .old news bud. . .and Digimarc tech has been in Photoshop since version 5.0. CS added the currency detection."
Jeff,
I would think that as a premier photo illustrator and control freak (meant in the best interpretation possible), this new feature might really rile your feathers.
Yes, most of do know that Digimark has been a PS plugin since version 5, but that was a PLUGIN, and one that the user could easily disable. That this technology comes from the same company does not make it the same.
I’ve been aware of this for some time. . .but my NDA has of course, precluded me from mentioning it before. It came up on beta. . .at first there was some confusion and concern. We were given an explanation very much like Kevin wrote here and the matter went away. But, the bottom line is that if you read between the lines (and this is pure guess on my part and not based upon specific knowledge) is that rather than risk having a governmental requirement placed on them, Adobe (as well as others) did this voluntarily to head something like that off.
Professionally, it has little impact on me. Its only mildly inconvenient for those times I might need to use current money and its pretty easy to source and work around. Only a subset of the formats are effected and only Photoshop CS-as well as other recent releases of other competing software-so it aint just an Adobe thing even if Adobe is the one getting blowback.
The vitriolic language by some is actually whats become the news. . .Ive read most of the press accounts and while they seem balanced, they are generally all being picked up from AP and seem to make mention of Adobe’s Forums so all the posts have gotten attention. But ask the common man and I suspect they would indeed see Adobe as making a patriotic act. Ask somebody outside of the industry for their thoughts.
While mildly interesting, it just doesnt rank very high on the top one hundred critical issues facing humanity, ya know? Censorship? Sorry, the inability of a piece of software to do something doesnt equate to censorship. Product liability? I dont think so. Theres no cause for any legal action (contrary to what some may think-but well find out if theres an attorney foolish enough to try).
Compare this to the Epson thingie with the ozone? I dont think so, that was a defect, not a function as designed. Fraud? Well, I dont remember Adobe telling anybody the currency checking tech WASNT in Photoshop, do you?
And as for the threat to the US economy regarding counterfeiting, its real. Not so much here in the US-there are hardcore pros that can work around this-but its in the third world where dollars ARE critical to many countrys economies and where there are no sophisticated methods of determining counterfeiting. This is a real threat. . .imagine a terrorist group flooding the economies of Africa or Asia with phony money that sure looks real. We all know how good digital tech is now.
Everybody is entitled to their opinion. . .the great thing about the US is we suffer even the lunatic fringe gladly because we know how important freedom is. Such as the freedom to post here on the Adobe Forums. But I dont recall the freedom to copy money is in any of the Bill of Rights. . .do you? But hey, if the thought of Adobe putting in some tech to prevent counterfeiting offends your sensibilities, you are free to return it to Adobe for a refund. . .
Nice to hear your voice regarding this, Jeff. The best part is that you’ve offered perspectives that hadn’t been addressed, here or any place else, as far as my reading has revealed, anyway.
I sent him an email requeststill waiting for Boggs to weigh in…
It is not about "some tech to prevent counterfeiting". It is about placing limits on the software that people purchase, with certain expectations (derived from the product’s advertising), without informing them that Adobe has done so.
But I dont recall the freedom to copy money is in any of the Bill of
Rights<<<
I don’t think that anyone here condones counterfeiting. I wasn’t aware that Adobe PS was a printing press! This is about a product that is sold as the premier software program to manipulate images for various reasons. Adobe has chosen to limit this ability. Now, that in its self, is not a big problem. What is the problem is that people were lead to purchase the product, not knowing that Adobe had introduced these limitations. No, Adobe doesn’t guarantee that is will copy currency, what it does advertise is its ability to manipulate images, period. Plain and simple, marketing FRAUD.
No legal issue or liability? Ask yourself… What, if any, reasoning is behind the hush, hush secrecy of this issue? What is the big deal about what was done? Can there be any reason other than to avoid people NOT purchasing the product? In the USA, Its called full disclosure!
And by the way, if you purchase your product from an "approved vendor" other than the Adobe Store, you will find that the refund policy is basically: :"no way will we return your money, we will only replace the product". That is in direct violation of what Adobe refund policy states. However, it is from their "approved" vendors.
It came up on beta. . .at first there was some confusion and concern. We were given an explanation very much like Kevin wrote here and the matter went away.
Well, I guess the BETA explanation did better than the Gold release explanation then, huh?
But, the bottom line is that if you read between the lines (and this is pure guess on my part and not based upon specific knowledge) is that rather than risk having a governmental requirement placed on them, Adobe (as well as others) did this voluntarily to head something like that off.
Which makes it less than voluntary, exactly. And when the Banks ask for broader checks or the proposed EU legislation goes through anyway what then? Wanna bet on ADOBE "rolling over" again?
No, Jeff, this looks like a corporation that CHOSE to take $ and get underwriting for what they might have to pay for if they waited. It looks like they sold out, artistic freedom in exchange for cold hard cash, plain and simple, whether that cash came in the form of underwriting or in the form of ADOBE being guaranteed accessibility to competition for future contracts..
Only a subset of the formats are effected and only Photoshop CS
Yup, and as Connors said, this is version 1.0, I’m sure ADOBE is ready to pledge not to expand it to other formats and close the loopholes?
Hmmmmm………. all I hear is silence on that..
as well as other recent releases of other competing software-so it aint just an Adobe thing even if Adobe is the one getting blowback
PhotoShop is:
1) ADOBE’s flagship software.
2) The leading software by FAR in the image editing market segment.
Let’s also look at the comparison Connor makes to printers. People aren’t upset about it being integrated into printing as much as they are about it being integrated further up the workflow. Stopping printing is acceptable to many, a much smaller subset feels that interdicting editing is fine too..
The vitriolic language by some is actually whats become the news. .
Umm.. which NEWS reports contain vitriolic language?
CNN?
CBS?
The AP story?
TechTV?
Please, tell us.. There’s anti-ADOBE vitriol on every forum where this has come up. But those fora are not the news, they are simply the comments of everyday people in response to the news.
I’ll let you in on a little secret.. The news stories have just begun (yes, I do know of more stories to come, but you’ll find out soon enough).. For the moment I wouldn’t go exercising any ADOBE stock options.
But ask the common man and I suspect they would indeed see Adobe as making a patriotic act.
Why do I expect John Phillip Sousa to come marching in about now? or Jack Nicholson to make some speech about "you don’t understand what it takes to defend democracy"? PUHLEAZE this is about cold hard cash… It damn sure isn’t about patriotism.. Please stop trying to wrap ADOBE and yourself in the Flag here, it’s not a pretty fit.
If you want to talk patriotism, I was in the Air Force, I chose to offer my life if necessary for my country, it’s values, it’s freedoms, and my fellow citizens. I could see the World Trade Center from my house. I took socks into NYC for firefighters and ground zero workers in the aftermath of 9-11, even though I am an asthmatic and the air of lower Manhattan was hard on me everytime I went in. Who the hell are you to believe that you can implicitly question the patriotism of those who defend the rights upon which this nation was founded?!! HOW DARE YOU!?
But lets look at the common man. The common man is often willing to give up some liberties for greater security. Ben Franklin, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Paine, all spoke clearly on that over 200 years ago, it’s nothing new.. Poll after poll has shown that the common man would allow searches without notice or warrants if it would help in the war on drugs. The Common Man supported the Mc Carthy hearings.. The common man supported interning Japanese-Americans in concentration camps during WWII, the majority of common men even supported slavery as an institution until the Civil War.. The common man today thinks Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9-11. That’s the mentality and understanding of the Constitution and Bill of Rights you are willing to hang your hat on?
That’s WHY the Constitution and Bill of Rights were put out of reach of easy change by the common man/woman whenever some new whim afflicts the majority. The Bill of Rights is about preventing the abuse of the majority’s power and protecting basic freedoms EVEN when that makes it harder for government or the majority.. We accept even repugnant and distasteful speech that the majority abhors, because Freedom of Expression is such a basic value, a value upon which Thomas Jefferson explained, all other Freedoms depoend. But, who IS that majority our founding fathers feared the tyranny of? The Common Man.
Where were you during civics and history classes? The fact is the Bill of Rights and Constitutional Amendments were made so strictly limiting of Government power AND so hard to amend for exactly that reason." Because the Founding Fathers understood that in times of danger, the common man or woman will oft choose to forego some liberty for temporary safety, even if that safety is only an illusion.
Try reading "The Federalist Papers" as written by John Adams and James Madison, two Founding Fathers, from opposite sides of the political aisle. The recurrent theme? That one needs to LIMIT the powers of government, to PRESERVE the rights and freedoms of the citizenry.
Censorship? Sorry, the inability of a piece of software to do something doesnt equate to censorship.
It probably does if any government underwrote the costs.. Moreso, governments provided the code. Therefore, under the law, on this issue, ADOBE may very well be considered a government actor.. ADOBE, in my opinion, is transparently doing the bidding of government and it doesn’t take a jurist to parse that. (although both your and Connor’s statements go a long way in helping to prove that – I’m actually shocked ADOBE’s counsel might have approved them in that form)
Product liability? I dont think so. Theres no cause for any legal action (contrary to what some may think-but well find out if theres an attorney foolish enough to try).
Go look up "warranty of fitness for particular use intended." The product in every prior iteration had done particular tasks for some customers that were vital to their work/art. Then ADOBE makes such actions impossible and chooses not to announce said change.. Actually they go further, they consciously choose to avoid announcing it, knowing from BETA that some will be upset (thanks for more evidence Jeff). I’d say ADOBE probably had an obligation to inform consumers, especially given the way the EULA voids license to earlier versions of the software should you resell or return it, that the software could no longer reliably depended upon for that particular use.
Fraud? Well, I dont remember Adobe telling anybody the currency checking tech WASNT in Photoshop, do you?
Funny, I don’t remember anyone accusing ADOBE of fraud..
And as for the threat to the US economy regarding counterfeiting, its real. Not so much here in the US-there are hardcore pros that can work around this-but its in the third world where dollars ARE critical to many countrys economies and where there are no sophisticated methods of determining counterfeiting.
Now you are being simply silly.. You happen to know a printer that can embed a security strip/security thread/ribbon in the bills? All anyone has to do is look for that while the bill is backlit.
And you are DEAD wrong about counterfeiting overseas, in many cases the pros are there, not here. In fact, there has been government sponsored counterfeiting since nations were established (and that’
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