Photoshop CS Adds Banknote Image Detection, Blocking?

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.

What's next?

[l810c (551591)]

'This application does not allow the unauthorized viewing of pornographic images...'

Re:What's next?

[FrostedWheat (172733)]

there goes me photoshopping various goatse images.

On the other hand, Fark might improve!

Just as Photoshop has this capability

[ObviousGuy (578567)]

So too, do I have the ability to tell American currency from other random images. If you have doubts about whether a document with an image on it in your wallet is American currency or not, please send it to me and I will verify whether it is American currency or otherwise.

I do this not for any personal gain, but only as a public service.

What a Shame

[illuminata (668963)]

With this new feature, how will the rap industry design album covers for their artists?

Re:What a Shame

[Kwikymart (90332)]

They'll have to switch over to the gold standard.

Re:What a Shame

[tankdilla (652987)]

They'll learn to use MS Paint in ways never before imagined.

Which ones?

[ReyTFox (676839)]

Does this include, for example, the "new $20?" (Or the "old $20" that didn't have the cartoony numbers.) Or is it imprecise? Will different denominations work with it? Inquering counterf---minds want to know... ^.^

That'll stop those counterfeiters...

[Hegemony (104638)]

...who aren't smart enough to use older versions of their software!!

Will localized versions "detect" local currency?

[ultrapenguin (2643)]

Now, aside from the fact whether this is a good or a bad feature, but will localized versions of Adobe photoshop CS be detecting local currency, or will they only have routines for U.S. dollars?

I don't want to feel left out, what if I wanted to use photoshop to make some fake Canadian money? :D

Re:Will localized versions "detect" local currency

[ultrapenguin (2643)]

I did some more tests. Not only will this stop opening an image such as this image [pbx.mine.nu], but it will also NOT allow pasting any significant portions of the above image, or !!! not even let you paste in a SCREENSHOT of windows image viewer opening that said image.

Wow! They must be doing these does-this-look-like-money checks on every operation on the image that involves getting image data from outside the application! Crazy.

Why?

[Beolach (518512)]

Not only is this rather invasive, as other posters have commented, but what's the point? I mean, their are dozens of other much better anti-counterfeiting measures on today's currency. So why have this "feature" at all? It really seems like a waste to me.

GIMP = Counterfeit tool?

[Jarnis (266190)]

And next week the govt labels GIMP as a tool for counterfeiting - evil open source terrorist tool etc... :)

It does nothing about Monopoly money, though.

[ctrl-alt-elite (679492)]

Well, at least at this stage of the game, Photoshop can't recognize Monopoly money. Boardwalk here I come!

pshaw.

[Valar (167606)]

Bet it won't stop those images I've been using to run off fake quarters...

WTF? When was that released?

[simpleguy (5686)]

Maybe I was living in a cave but when was Photoshop Counter Strike released ???

Well, sure...

[Guido del Confuso (80037)]

But they didn't go far enough! They should also prevent you from editing images of coins!

Reminds me of a joke... A counterfeiter accidentally prints up a batch of $18 bills. He figures, what the heck, and heads off into the mountains to find some hillbillies, figuring they don't know anything about money anyway. He runs across a couple of them sitting on a porch, rolls down his window, and shouts, "Any of you got change for an $18 bill?"

One of them shouts back, "Sure do! You want 3 sixes or 6 threes?"

Re:Well, sure...

[Rosco P. Coltrane (209368)]

heads off into the mountains to find some hillbillies, figuring they don't know anything about money anyway. He runs across a couple of them sitting on a porch, rolls down his window, and shouts, "Any of you got change for an $18 bill?"

One of them shouts back, "Sure do! You want 3 sixes or 6 threes?"

This story is obviously an urban legend : what self-respecting mountain hillbilly would have known 3x6=18?

Interesting news but...

[erroneus (253617)]

...as if this has truly long-term effects. I suppose counterfeiters might prefer photoshop, but what about those that prefer Gimp? I guess since Photoshop stands in their way, then Gimp will become their new favorite.

Time and time again it is generally not the ink but the paper that most needs duplication when attempting counterfeit. I see this as a silly waste of resources. Generally speaking, if I or just about anyone I know were inclined to do anything with the image of currency, it'd probably be to deface it in some way... or maybe put my face in there... who knows what cheesy thing that has been done a hundred times before.

The point is, even though there's not likely to be a huge public outcry about this, this does offer a pretty interesting blow to free expression. Who influenced the action?

Attention counterfeiters!

[PizzaFace (593587)]

Attention counterfeiters: I have old versions of image-editing software for sale! The price just doubled but you don't have much choice now, do you? Payment by cash only ... uh, never mind.

So how will they design new currency?

[harlows_monkeys (106428)]

I was watching a show on the History Channel about counterfeiting, and they were interviewing one of the designers of United States bills. The graphical workstation he used? Photoshop on a Mac (black & white G4, it looked like).

I hope Adobe has a special version for the Treasury Department that doesn't have this restriction!

WTF?

[SmallFurryCreature (593017)]

Is it illegal or something to scan and alter images of money? I can see the advertising world getting into troubles. It is illegal in holland at least to make reproductions of money so if you print a note you make it an absurd size. No one is gonna mistake a poster for a real a banknote. Or you discolor it or make it an odd amount (27 euro notes)

Point is I have seen and still see plenty of ads in wich bank notes are displayed. So how are you now supposed to make that art?

If this is true and I smell april fool then I think this is a sign of insanity. Criminals won't be stopped by this.

Re:WTF?

[clymere (605769)]

Generally, any US documents such as currency, stamps, drivers licenses, etc. can only be legally reproduced at greater then 150% or less than 75%. I work in a print shop and just read through the copyright rules. Apparently, you can't so much as reproduce your own senior pictures without permission from the photographer who took them.

The only real problem is PERFORMANCE.

[thopo (315128)]

Photoshop scans every image, and even the clipboard, for banknotes. Since the algo seems to be pretty smart (rotation etc. doesn't matter) i guess it's rather slow. People have been reporting that CS is slower than PS7 on the adobe forums for a while, i guess now we know the reason.

Panties-in-a-bunch

[malia8888 (646496)]

From the article: 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.

All I can say is my panties are definately in a bunch over this!! I have some pretty ugly relatives. What if Photoshop gives me error messages regarding the following: "Your family is so unattractive that we are redirecting you to the web where you can pick out better-looking people to populate your Adobe Family Photo Album.

It could happen.

Activation.

[themassiah (80330)]

I find it interesting that the Slashdot community is upset about this 'protection from counterfeiting', but isn't up in arms about the required product activation [adobe.com]. With more than half of SlashDot using the Windows platform, you'd think there would be more concern about this.

Re:Activation.

[themassiah (80330)]

Even more distressing, when I read through all of Adobe's licensing drivel is the part about where the activation is stored. It seems much like TurboTax's activation scheme, from the initial details.

From Adobe:

"Q: Do I have to reactivate if I reformat my hard drive?

A: As long as you don't "low-level" reformat your hard drive, you will not be required to reactivate Photoshop CS software. Please note that normal utilities (provided by the operating system vendor) for reformatting the hard drive do not perform a "low-level" reformat."

What ELSE does PS CS can for?

[thopo (315128)]

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 PS 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, but do you know it's only limited to banknotes?

Ran into similar problem

[UserChrisCanter4 (464072)]

I was using Photoshop 7.0 on OS X and ran into a similar problem. I was scanning a Versace ad from a magazine (it was for a random class project), and I needed to be able to blow up a portion of the ad a reasonable amount. I planned to put it on a large print, so I scanned at 800dpi. Photoshop apparently saw some sort of watermark in the ad itself (or the magazine page, it was in one of those gigantic fashion mags with like 500 pages, 8 of which are content) and refused to allow me to do anything with it other than resizing. I scanned at a lower dpi (400), and was able to circumvent the problem. Seemed kind of ghetto to me, though. I haven't tried it under CS, but I'll bet the watermarks exist there, as well.

Two obvious projects

[Alsee (515537)]

The first obvious project is to locate and trivially disable the check. This is no harder than disabling routine anti-piracy checks, and we all know those are solved within hours of release.

The second, and far more interesting project is to the reverse engineer the check itself. It would be facinating to see the US government's own algorithm for flagging/detecting US currency. It would then be almost trivial to embed a false "US currency" flag in almost any image. You could post your entire porn collection on the web with an invisible bogus "US currency" watermark :D

-

Money now, corporate logos next.

[DigiShaman (671371)]

Just wait until Adobe gets payed off to include corporate logos from being scanned or altered either. Seems far fetched? Well...just read my sig.

Secrecy is the point here.

[Eminence (225397)]

What is worrying here is not the fact that this feature was built into Photoshop but that it was done secretly. This kind of secret arrangement between companies and government has long tradition in the US, but think about other nice features that can be put into closed source software as a result. Some may not be as easy to detect.

The promlem? Censorship!

[Maresi (456339)]

Ok, the it starts with banknotes.
It continues with pr0n.
But where will it end?

Who has the right to decide what kind of image I view/edit? A law, praps a judge. Certainly not a sw-producer!

Re:The promlem? Censorship!

[EvanED (569694)]

On the contrary, I think a software company deciding is much better than a legislator or judge. At least in the former case, you can choose a different piece of software. In the latter you have to leave the country.

Re:The promlem? Censorship!

[lokedhs (672255)]

If you don't like it, don't use it.

I don't think GIMP has this kind of limitiation.

Re:The promlem? Censorship!

[by Anonymous Coward]

It continues with pr0n.

"Error: Processing images of the goatse man is illegal under the Large Anal Cavity Act."

Re:The promlem? Censorship!

[by Anonymous Coward]

I would like to see a nipple detector.

Re:The promlem? Censorship!

[EvanED (569694)]

When did it become Adobe's job to enforce the law at the expense of flexibility? (Albeit a small one)

Re:Uhm.. So?

[velo_mike (666386)]

Am I the only one who doesnt see this as a huge problem? I could be missing something though.....

Guess it depends on what you're doing with it. I bet the marketing department of my first real job (a casino) would have problems with it - what else could you show in casino ads? I'd guess that banks, car dealers and especially those check cashing/usury lenders in the hood would like to do the same.

The problems are, the law defines how currency may and may not be reproduced and this goes beyond the law, it's not up to adobe to enforce the law, and since there are plenty of legitimate uses for photoshopping currency it's a crippled version that is apparently not disclosed anywhere external.

Re:Uhm.. So?

[bgog (564818)]

Let's see. What if I work for a large retailer and am tasked with creating an extensive presentation for the employees on the counterfit protections in the new currency. Yes, yes, they have pamphlets but my boss wants everyone well trained.

So I whip out my scanner and trusty photo shop, perhaps I can get some nice close-ups of those little protection.

This is rediculous to do. It won't stop the bad guys, they'll just use other software or and older version. However it can be really annoying for a legitimate user. BAAAH

Re:Uhm.. So?

[ShadowDrake (588020)]

Well, there are most certainly legit uses for banknote pics.

Ever try to buy numismatic items online? You really need a pic, both for identification (the note with Timashev's name is worth way more than the one with Shipov's) and for checking quality

Re:I wonder why they did it.

[twistedcubic (577194)]

Maybe the government requested it?

It's true

[by Anonymous Coward]

I try copying the new twenty on a Canon CL5000 and it came out black. Old twenty no problem. 100, too. This is USD.

Copiers have had this feature since 1987

[StandardCell (589682)]

We used to sell photocopiers in our family business around 18 years ago. I remember when the first copier came in, a Sharp, the police also came for a visit not too long afterwards. They wanted to know who was buying it, and expressly forbid either us or any customer from photocopying money. Now, we were very curious, so one of the salesmen took a Canadian $50 and copied the one side of an 8.5"x11" 20lb bond copier paper. To be honest, it was far too glossy to be passed off as a bill, and the paper didn't feel right. Still, in a stack of bills it could easily be passed over in a bill counter if it was properly aligned, which in and of itself was impossible. Essentially, it wasn't feasible. Anyway, fast forward to today, all color copiers come with a currency copying detection system. They detect the paper notes of most major currencies, and if anyone attempts to copy them, a flag is set in the machine such that the next time it gets serviced it actually informs the technician, who then informs the police. I believe some machines even cease operation until a technician is called. It's basically a big mess, so any potential criminal would still be better off using a PC with scanner and inkjet printer, which is how most counterfeiting is done AFAIK.

Re:Don't copy machine have this feature too?

[McSnarf (676600)]

They do. I work for a major manufacturer - all of our colur machines have this feature and will actually lock up, displaying an error code.
However - even if you managed to somehow work around this, there is still a way (which I will not disclose) to find out on what machine (manufacturer, model, serial number) a color copy was taken. Supposedly another legal requirement.
(And yes, I have seen it and does work...)

Re:This isn't exactly new tech...

[R33MSpec (631206)]

What happens if I want to make a backup copy of a note that I have in my wallet? At least if my wallet is lost or stolen i will have a backup of the cash that was inside there!

Re:This isn't exactly new tech...

[zakezuke (229119)]

but I cannot see a single real scenario where this truly makes a problem for anyone

When I wanted to copy currency was when I was contructing a three dollar bill, and I was going to use other currency as a template.

One legit application I can think of for scanning currency would be for collectors who wish to archive their collection. At one point I had a 1986 Canadian $2.00 bill... near as I can tell they switched to a two and one dollar coin a long time ago. While you might consider this nutty... imagine stamp collectors. Legit enough hobby.

I wanted to show it to someone, who was a canadian, and did a scan, making sure I put on it in bold friendly letters "copy copy copy copy".

That reminds me, I do have some out of print currency I should take the time to scan. Unique images should be saved.

Re:This isn't exactly new tech...

[bloxnet (637785)]

This is interesting...and so typical of people looking a reason to get all flustered for the sake of just blustering against "Big Brother", et al....no matter how weak or baseless the reasons.

Security invasion? Privacy invasion? Where? This is not a case of Photoshop sending a report of your attempt to make a copy of currency, it's simply a step that Adobe is taking to try and help be one of the "good guys". I fail to see how you can claim that counterfeit efforts using cheap (comparitively), easily obtainable hardware and software is not a problem...especially when several news items have stated that this *is* in fact a rising problem. Literally less than a week ago I watched a story on the local news about convenience store owners being passed fake 20's that were only spotted when doing the daily books or readying the deposits. In a busy environment, the money duplication doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to pass a quick glance and feel like 1 of the 1000 some odd variations in currency texture from wear and tear (circulation). It clearly is a problem, and even if not epidemic, it is still a real and valid concern.

Yes, you can use GIMP or other programs to avoid this, yes there are far more sophisticated methods to making fake currency. Adobe has decided to take some form of action to do their part to not be a tool used for this.

Invasion of security and privacy? Again...where? Do you understand the meaning of these words?

I respect the decision made by Adobe, and refer to my original point...at this time, being that this only affects trying to copy currency, I see no legitimate complaint or impairment of functionality, or "invasion" of any kind.

Besides, on another level, if Adobe continues directing all of their attention towards preventing currency fraud, it means less effort on troublesome protection efforts that keep me from pirating their software.

oops...did I just type that?

Re:This isn't exactly new tech...

[putaro (235078)]

It's a tool that doesn't work right and that has arbitrary restrictions built into it that are not disclosed. What's next - looking for a little RIAA watermark in an image and refusing to work on those?

There's a typical argument trotted out of "there's no legitimate reason to do X therefore you shouldn't complain if you are prevented from doing X". Typically it just shows a lack of imagination for the person making the argument. There are many good reasons why I might want to work with an image of currency. My child might be writing a report for school about money. I might like to have pictures of money on my desktop. When my wife gave birth here in Japan we had to pay the hospital bill in cash. I have a picture of hundreds of 10,000 yen bills since I'll probably never have that much in cash in hand again. What's wrong with me taking that picture and using it?

We're starting to see more and more software that won't allow you to do "X" because someone thinks it's naughty. We stand at the beginning of a new age as products become "smarter". The political thinking and attitudes that we develop now about products that are "good guys" preventing us from committing crimes will be with us for some time. Would you like automobiles that do not allow you to speed? How about a hammer that refuses to break windows?

Re:This isn't exactly new tech...

[Drishmung (458368)]

Have you heard about Woz and his sheet of $2 bills? [woz.org]. If you like carrying $2 bills, then consider going the whole hog and really getting to know the local law enforcement personel.

WTF are you on?

[WIAKywbfatw (307557)]

What are you blathering on about? The Euro notes have far better anti-counterfeit measures on them than the uniqueness of the images on them. Perhaps you've not seen one, but they have metallic foil elements, watermarks, etc that would be impossible to fake without some serious hardware.

You might be able to pass off a fake US note easily enough in the right conditions (dim lighting in a busy, smokey bar) but you'd have to find a blind barman to be able to pass off your colour laser copies of a Euro note as the real thing: as far as I'm aware, nobody makes a laser printer that lets you emboss silver foil onto (and into) a piece of paper.

You're whole "unique arches to avoid confusion with holiday snaps" argument is ridiculous too. The reason why the Euro notes have images of various styles of European achitecture thoughout the ages on them (Gothic, etc) is because those styles are generic enough to be found across the continent. If you had specific pieces of achitecture on the notes, say a 10 Euro note with the Eiffel Tower on it and a 20 Euro note with the Leaning Tower of Pisa on it, then you'd find countries getting into pissing contests over whose monuments shoud appear on the highest value notes. You'd also run out of note values before you ran out of countries, and thereby alienate any countries that weren't represented.