Photoshop Fails At Counterfeit Prevention 712
JediDan writes "Wired reports that the 'Anti-counterfeiting provisions in the latest version of Adobe Systems' flagship product have proven little more than a speed bump, but company representatives insist that including them was the right thing to do.' Kevin Connor, Adobe's director of product management for professional digital imaging said, 'As a market leader and a good corporate citizen, this just seems like the right thing to do.' Maybe if they didn't spend R&D time and money on useless features, their products would be more affordable."
What were they thinking? (Score:2)
Re:What were they thinking? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What were they thinking? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What were they thinking? (Score:5, Insightful)
IOW, maybe we should all buy the rest of the product, as we're already subsidizing it anyway.
I guess I could warm to the nannyism, if it actually prevented lawbreaking.
I have no way of knowing, but I Guess the Illegitimate Might Procure something else for their dark deeds.
$150,000 in R&D Dollars Flushed Down the Toile (Score:5, Funny)
Development effort for protection scheme: $150,000
Cost in added crypo components (100,000 units): $1.2 Million
Look on CEO's face when some kid in Sweden breaks the copy protection 12 hours before the product is officially released: Priceless
There are some things money can't buy, for everything else there are gullable shareholders.
Re:$150,000 in R&D Dollars Flushed Down the To (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What were they thinking? (Score:3, Insightful)
I wouldn't call this 'copy protection' in the sense that you're describing it. Adobe's trying to keep their ass out of the fire. If Photoshop were suddenly used to do a great deal of counterfitting, Adobe can fire back and say "we made a good faith effort to let people know that it's illegal."
Frankly, I don't see how Adobe could have
Re:What were they thinking? (Score:2)
Re:What were they thinking? (Score:5, Informative)
It seems like, from the backlash and speed problems of Photoshop CS, Photoshop 7 will be around for quite a while to come.
Re:What were they thinking? (Score:3, Informative)
Mismanaged resources (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe they should just skip the product and go directly to printing the money.
Re:Mismanaged resources (Score:4, Funny)
Unless you work around via ImageReady
Really, theyre devs are smart
Re:Mismanaged resources (Score:5, Funny)
my suggestion: stop using that dvorak keyboard.
They didn't spend R&D time or money (Score:3, Informative)
Adobe doesn't even know how it works (it is a black box), not to mention having wasted any effort on it.
Re:They didn't spend R&D time or money (Score:5, Interesting)
I see where you're coming from, but in my experience, development doesn't work like that. Nobody just drops some mystery code into their product and releases it (can you imagine this code breaking some other feature and Adobe tells their customers "well, the Fed. told us this code would work...sorry 'bout that"?). Features like this are typically worked into design specs and engineering specs. It also needs to be integrated into their codebase (even if they were just a bunch of precompiled methods) -- it needs to interface with their software somehow, no? Code like this also has to be tested, which can be a pretty major undertaking. Furthermore, for every change that's made to any part of the code, features like this (and all others) are usually tested in regression.
While Adobe may not have spent time developing the code itself, I'm fairly certain that this code adds to the bottom line of development costs...which also adds to the bottom line of the product cost to the end user (unless they tack that expenditure onto some other product).
In the end, we all pay for a "feature" that we don't want...even though we do pay for it, we'll never notice (unless we're counterfitters, in which case, we'll either use a different product, or find a way to easily circumvent the "feature"). It's downright lame and it's not their job to enforce the law. Besides, what's illegal about scanning in a $20 bill? I can think of 10 legitimate reasons to do just that right now.
What's next, anti kiddie-porn protection? At least the code will actually prevent a law from being broken (unless you're taking baby pictures and your kids like to be nude...it happens).
Re:I can see the ads now (Score:3, Funny)
"Print your own US$649.00 rebate in CASH on the included currency paper sheets."
My grandmother is a $20 bill? (Score:5, Funny)
That's good, because there's nothing like having a top-of-the-line imaging program tell you that your grandmother looks like Andrew Jackson. Yikes!
Re:My grandmother is a $20 bill? (Score:5, Funny)
That's good, because there's nothing like having a top-of-the-line imaging program tell you that your grandmother looks like Andrew Jackson. Yikes!
Somewhere, Bea Arthur's grandson sheds a silent tear as he tries to scan family pictures.
Re:My grandmother is a $20 bill? (Score:3, Funny)
Photoshop's real purpose (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Photoshop's real purpose (Score:3, Funny)
Wow, must be some advanced scanning features (Score:2)
how else would you open an image of currency?
Re:Wow, must be some advanced scanning features (Score:2)
not like we haven't seen this before (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:not like we haven't seen this before (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:not like we haven't seen this before (Score:5, Insightful)
Currency listing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Both are not as uncommon as one might think, and perfectly legitimate uses.
Any measure which blocks a vast array of legitimate uses in order to hamper a small group performing illigitimate use it stupid. How many times will we pay for somebody else's money-copying/piracy/et
Re:not like we haven't seen this before (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, if you knew the law, you would know that just taking a bill "as is", putting your own photo in the middle and reprinting it is only legal when following certain guidelines [treas.gov].
You can't make true novelty money that's similar except for your photo, if you really wanted to, you would most likely want it double-sided. That's illegal in the US. Also, you'd
Re:not like we haven't seen this before (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:not like we haven't seen this before (Score:3, Informative)
Ah, thank you. While you're at it, would you mind explaining how I just raised MY OWN FINGERPRINTS from a peice of paper not five minutes ago using some CrazyGlue and a toaster?
I admit the quality was was far from ideal. Parts of are quite clear and detailed and other parts are spotty. I am even able see the loops and whirls of one fingerprint on top of another fingerprint. And I'm not a law enforcement agency, I don'
The real issue (Score:3, Interesting)
I can certainly see many legitimate reasons. I've made novelty money before. They certainly wouldn't fool anyone (by design).
The problem with any technology with this is that it removes law from the realm of human decision and instead slavishly enforces a limited and unmovable interpretation of the law. The result is that a number of perfectly legal and ethical actions are rendered impossible. It is only defects in the software that allows it to be bypassed at all.
For every prohibition out there, there
Re:not like we haven't seen this before (Score:3)
At any rate, I'm skeptical about some of these "circumventions". The last time this issue came up here, people tried the cut and paste tricks and reported that they didn't work. I wonder what resolution had to be used for "digital artist Kie
Re:not like we haven't seen this before (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. Why would 99% of legitimate users need to cut out a cat from one image, paste it into the Houston city skyline, add some UFO's, and then add the tagline, "I, for one, welcome our new feline overlords." ???
And then add a guy throwing money at the cat?
Don't presume to know why a user would want to user a particular feature.
--Rob
Economics (Score:3, Informative)
Please, stop making comments on what they should price their software until you take some rudimentary economics courses.
Re:Economics (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Economics (Score:3, Informative)
It's called the 'Elasticity of demand'
Re:Economics (Score:2)
Most of the people whining about the price are people who wouldn't use Photoshop's power anyway, and could easily use a much less expensive package. And, heck, there's always The Gimp -- which offers most of Photoshop's power for absolutely no cost. And yes, it runs on Windows too.
R&D time and money? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:R&D time and money? (Score:2)
Shouldn't be that hard, should it?
Re:R&D time and money? (Score:4, Funny)
"Requests are normally answered within two weeks."
Hello, information superhighway!
See old /. comment for how it works (Score:5, Informative)
GIMP plugin? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:GIMP plugin? (Score:2)
Hah ha! If you would like to stop yourself from counterfeiting, download this module and install it for use in Gimp. If you are a counterfeiter, please download and install the module. Then do not attempt to bypass it's security in any way.
Re:GIMP plugin? (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:GIMP plugin? (Score:4, Interesting)
yes They can (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:GIMP plugin? (Score:5, Interesting)
I personally have zero respect for companies that go out of their way to cripple their product in one way or another. Software has enough unintentional bugs without the developers deciding to break it on purpose.
Re:GIMP plugin? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:GIMP plugin? (Score:5, Informative)
Sure... Check out this image [cam.ac.uk] (warning, a PDF)...
On the 10 Euro note pictured, you can see the pattern VERY well, as the author connected the relevant 5-dot groupings with green lines.
It looks vaguely like the Cingular logo, IMO, or perhaps a little headless stick-figure.
On the US $20, the pattern appears using the zeros from the repeated background "20"s, or so I've read (I haven't personally verified it).
totally sweet! (Score:5, Funny)
The trick is (Score:2, Insightful)
Rather than blast Adobe for including this, a better idea in my opinion is to be somewhat grateful that there's no constant checking in place to waste CPU cycles, or slow down graphic developers everytime an image is saved or loaded.
Useless R&D increases cost (Score:5, Insightful)
No kidding. And that only starts the downward spiral. Once your software is over a couple hundred dollars a lot of people who would like to pay for it can't afford it. Those people either use it without paying for it, or don't use it at all. Either way, they aren't paying, which leads to a further increase in cost to the remainder who are buying. And on and on...
I almost choke when I see the prices on some of the software bundles, especially Adobe.
Re:Useless R&D increases cost (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Useless R&D increases cost (Score:4, Insightful)
I think I hear it differently than you do, I disagree. I see Photoshop as a program very much aimed at a very real group of people who spend and make significant amounts of money doing graphics, photography or other art. There are other programs, such as Photoshop LE, Photoshop Elements, Paint Shop Pro, and the GIMP which serve different markets with more or less success, all at lower prices, some free, or free bundled with hardware. But suggesting that a program that feeatures built-in support for the raw file format of a $7,000 camera isn't marketed at someone who complains about a $600 price tag isn't elitist, it's simply obvious. Me, I have that $7K camera, I need that feature, and $600 is absolutely a reasonable amount to pay for the overall functionality, for me.
It'd be cool to have a Humvee, too, and I could use some of its special functionality here and there, but it's too expensive for what I would use it for. I don't think they should stop making them just because of that, though, nor do I think the price is necessarily wrong for people who have different uses for it than I do.
This whole $600 diatribe on this thread, with regard to the anti-counterfitting measures, is nonsense anyhow. The same measures are almost certainly in Photoshop Elements. The idea that the cost of the anti-counterfitting software is substantial is shown to be false by that fact alone.
How are you going to aquire experience and practice, if you're unable to use the necessary tools?
I'd suggest looking at Adobe's student pricing, if you're serious about learning.
Re:Useless R&D increases cost (Score:3, Insightful)
And I'd suggest you take a good look at how Adobe maintains its marketshare today. They offer student pricing, but guess what, many students still don't have the money for it. Yet millions of college students always seem to have the latest photoshop. And when they go work for a company, that company is going to have to buy a copy of Photoshop for them if they're doing graphics work.
Adobe is shooting itself in the foot her
I suppose reading the article is too much. (Score:5, Informative)
From the article:
The anti-counterfeit software in Photoshop CS was developed by the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group, an organization established by the governors of the G-10 central banks to promote the use of anti-counterfeit devices in the computer industry.
The inner workings of the counterfeit deterrence system are so secret that not even Adobe is privy to them. The Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group provides the software as a black box without revealing its precise inner workings, Connor said.
[OT] What kind of scanner can do this? (Score:2)
Re:[OT] What kind of scanner can do this? (Score:5, Funny)
I want to BestBuy last week, and sure enough, right there next to those little photograph printers, was an illegal currency printer. The side of the box said,:
HP Illegal Currency Printer (USB)
Plug and Play technology
System Requirements:
Pentium II 200 MHz or better
128 MBytes Ram
Windows 98/NT/2000/XP
Note: Does not work with Adobe Photoshop CS
Don't forget HP Bank Note Paper and Ink Cartridges (HP-ICP-701).
Good faith effort? (Score:3, Insightful)
umm (Score:2, Insightful)
They didn't spend any R&D time on the anti-counterfeiting aspect of Photoshop CS.
From the article - "The anti-counterfeit software in Photoshop CS was developed by the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group"
Also, their products are priced fairly for the power they have. Photoshop in particular is an invaluable tool, and it's easily possible to get back the money you've invested in it b
What R&D money? (Score:5, Insightful)
So Adobe just plugged in an OCX in their program or something similarly easy. It's not this "feature" that bloats the price tag, I'm afraid.
Also, why all this secrecy on the "inner workings" of the software, when it's so easily circumvented (e.g. copy and paste from another app)? Why should scanning money be illegal? It's ridiculous - it's like banning knives because they could be dangerous. It's not the technology, it's the use you make of it. I don't understand why politicians fail to understand this simple concept: technology is not evil or good, it does not pose new moral problems. It's always the same problems, just with a different twist in the details.
Re:What R&D money? (Score:3, Funny)
I know where they got the R&D money...:-D
Photoshop (Score:2, Insightful)
It's a feature (Score:5, Funny)
The next version promises to be even less affordable, to the degree that no matter how rich you are, you'll have to counterfeit money just to buy it--thus ensuring that you don't use it to make the counterfeits!
from the 'nice try' dept. (Score:4, Interesting)
Took about a minute to foil them...
Photography boards (Score:5, Insightful)
I am an amatuer photographer. Its really funny how just about EVERYONE I know who is into photography has a copy of photoshop. Hmmm... They can't afford a new $500 flash, but they can afford $500 for Photoshop.
Its obvious to me the Photoshop is way, way overpriced. Now, Adobe is free to charge whatever they want for it, but the average Joe is not willing to dump $500 on software.
True, counterfeiting software is not a "right", but its bound to happen when companies overcharge. Why do you think people are so quick to download music and copy CDs?
Re:Photography boards (Score:5, Insightful)
I am a professional photographer. It is obvious to me that Photoshop is worth every penny.
The solution to this problem (Score:2)
Is secure and anonymous digital cash, not stupid gimicky features or restrictions on technology. The Chaum patents expire in 2005, so we only have a year or two to wait for someone to make a good implementation of them.
Stupid patents. Do more to stifle innovation than they do to help.
Caused more of a problem (Score:2)
Oh well, looks like we have another counterproductive attempt to control what people do with technolo
Price (Score:5, Insightful)
First off, every company spends time/money for R&D on features or products that never even reach the consumer, let alone generate a profit. Any company that hasn't done so would take over the entire planet in a short amount of time.
Secondly, Photoshop has been expensive for the last decade. Do you really think they sat down 10 years ago and budgetted 50 million dollars to add an anti-counterfeitting feature? You charge what the market can bear. And the market has been able to bear a $700 price tag (or whatever they're charging). As proof of this, I submit the fact that Adobe is still in business.
It's fine to whine about MS charging $XXX for products that aren't anywhere near the best tool for any job, but Photoshop is an incredible tool and worth every penny.
t3h C14 pwnz j00 (Score:2)
Wow, I'm sure Adobe has NO idea what's going into its own products, they just copy and paste government code in like THAT without even looking at it.
Sounds good to me (Score:3, Funny)
That sure beats a Goatse redirect.
R&D time and money? (Score:2, Funny)
I'm sure they are just printing their own money anyway.
americentric criminals (Score:2, Insightful)
Does it only detect features on American currency? I would much prefer to bootleg money from a country that wouldn't hunt me down with a "Secret Service", if I were a criminal.
WHY... Please tell me WHY! (Score:2)
I don't even want to think about the reasoning here...
use something else (Score:2)
'Feature' already trespassed! (Score:5, Informative)
The price doesn't reflect cost (Score:3, Informative)
Anyone who believes this must also believe that Microsoft is trying hard to lower costs but just can't do it. Face it, this software reflects what they think the market will bear, not what it costs to develop. A few years ago when Photoshop 5.x was out, they also had a "Lite" version that cost about half as much as full Photoshop. Thing was, you could also get the exact same licensed software free with a $100 Maxtor hard drive. Anyone who paid the full price for the "Lite" version was a real chump, but I'm sure there were plenty who did, and thought they were saving money after seeing the cost of the "Full" version.
Also, several years ago I had a friend who bought a scanner that came with a bundeled and fully licensed copy of the full version of Photoshop (NOT the "Lite" version). At the time scanners were expensive, but he still paid about half of what it would have cost to buy just Photoshop for a good scanner and a Full, legal, upgradeable Photoshop. (he got the Kai with it too!)
They could spend 1/10 of what they now spend on R&D, but they are not going to drop the product price by a penny while they think they can still get current prices. On the other hand, if you shop around you can sometimes get it at a much fairer price.
Laws+ Interpretation= Confusion (Score:3, Interesting)
"...U.S. law, which allows color reproductions of U.S. bank notes so long as the reproductions are smaller than 75 percent or larger than 150 percent of actual size. The reproduction must be one-sided, and all materials, including graphic files that were used to make the reproduction, must be destroyed afterward. "
I used to work on Television Commercials and the Ad Agencies would all go nuts over those rules anytime we did a commercial that showed ANY US Currency (think Lottery Commercials...)
Fairly Realistic "Fake" Money Exists that can be used for showing huge piles of Cash and it's handy when you do need to have the appearance of money blowing around all over the place.
But sometimes the job entailed filming a SINGLE US banknote and the Ad Agency would insist we use "Fake" money because they did not want to get in trouble with the Treasury dept. Never mind that the image was going to appear on a TV screen, it existed on 35mm film before going to videotape.
What really pissed me off one day was when -on set- the Art Director was complaining that the "Fake"Money we were using did not look "real" enough. *sigh*
The "fake" money we were using was as real as the US Treasury allowed. There is a printing company in California that comes up with this stuff for the Film Biz and they had been through many generations of "fake" styles. Each generation looked better than the previous one.
Apparently one of their "styles" of "fake" bills went too far and the US Treasury confiscated the printed bills AND the plates used to print them.
I've made a bunch of "REAL" money over the years in overtime and other things thanks to the Ad Agencies confusion over the interpretation of this law.
I blame the US Mint (Score:3, Informative)
Seriously, the US was like, one of the last countries to finally put watermarks in their bills. Even Turkey had watermarks before we did. Turkey!
Of course, their money is made out of crappier fibers; it doesn't hold up nearly as well as a US bill. From some people who are world travellers, I'm told the people in other countries don't even bother spot-checking a bill to see if it's genuine. They feel it with their hands. Apparently, tt's pretty easy to distinguish the real paper from the fake.
So, ultimately, I think that intricate designs are no longer going to stop counterfeiters. What's going to work is making the composite materials more difficult to mimic. What I think they should do, and I think this would probably work, is to weave the fibers so that there is contrast built into the paper weave itself which spells out the denomination: twenty, ten, etc. All you'd have to do is look at it from an angle or hold it to the light to see the weave. That would make it much, much more difficult to counterfeit.
Why Adobe should remove this check (Score:4, Interesting)
Taken to extremes, will Adobe build in Child Pornography checking? Or scan your hard drives for incriminating pictures or files? Where does it end? And why is something I buy for editing images checking and deciding what I can do with the files I create?
At least, this could open Adobe up to legal problems - if their checks fail and someone is 'allowed' to do what should have been 'prevented'.
All in all, it sucks. If I wanted a counterfeit currency checker, I'd buy a 4.95 felt tip pen.
Legal requirements aren't technical specifications (Score:3, Insightful)
There are probably other rights, as well. If, for satirical purposes, I want to produce an altered image of $20 bill with a portrait of George Bush or Bart Simpson or my grandmother on it, I believe that is legal. As long as the final product isn't a counterfeit, the fact that there may be intermediate images in RAM that would be counterfeits if printed shouldn't matter.
Similarly, DRM systems don't check to see whether what you want to do is fair use, whether the supposedly copyrighted material is actually in the public domain, etc.
No, these systems are always quick, dirty, and one-sided. And it's always "prior restraint." The software stops you from exercising what may well be your legal rights without due process, without imposing any burden of proof on the entity on whose behalf it is acting, without any appeal (other than returning the software for a refund)...
There is no way to accurately map the complexity of the legal system, which is designed for processing by human brains, into a software specification, for a program to be executed by a computer. All attempts to do so are injurious to the rights of one party or the other. Oddly enough, the injured party always seems to be the consumer.
digital counterfeiting on the rise? (Score:5, Informative)
Correction: The proportion of counterfeit bills detected grew. I'm guessing that digital copies aren't as good as what the professionals use, and they're more easily detected -- the well made bills stay in circulation. Here's a cool pdf from the GAO [globalsecurity.org] that illustrates many types of counterfeits, including the superdollar.
Prices (Score:5, Interesting)
Software (and to a lesser extent, hardware) prices are based on percieved value. When Microsoft charges $400 for Office, do you really believe that R&D cost them $350 for every copy? The upfront cost was in the tens of millions, but the cost to print the CD, box and manual is right around $5. Does that mean that we should be paying $10 for office? After all, a 50% profit margin is pretty good, right?
Adobe doesn't charge $650 for PS-CS because their costs are high. They charge that much because that's what the market will bear. That's what it seems to be worth.
-- Hamster
"Some" obviously aren't engineers. (Score:5, Funny)
The answer to this wonderful question is knowable through the simple process of "Ancedotal Induction."
At some point during the development of the mentioned version of the application, someone in product management induced a design constraint along the lines of "don't enable counterfeiters." None of the other product managment types cared because "we'll get that for free from the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group."
Product managmeent gave this new design constraint to a behind-schedule-implementation-manager. This poor guy said "sure", because, well... they're paid to agree with product managment. Especially since it was something "we'll get for free from the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group."
So the behind-schedule-implementation-manager went to the engineering team and said "we need to add counterfeit deterrence, give me the schedule impact, but I've already decided it shouldn't take _any_ time at all, because we'll get it for free from the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group."
The engineers decided immediately that actual counterfeit deterrence would require software slightly more capable than the average bartender, and that there was no good place in the image processing design to hook in something like that anyway. However, since it wasn't their code that'd take the blame when it didn't work... who cares. They told the implementation manager that it'd add as many hours to the schedule as they were currently behind and went back to work.
Eventually, the component (let's be realistic: an old version of a dll, and the wrong typelib, and a corrupted Word document claiming to be the "design document and manual) shows up in an engineer's inbox. He hacks it in on a branch to one part of the image import processing logic, fires up the build, and doesn't see it crash. It gets merged back to the main line immediately.
The last it was ever heard from before shipping was when someone from the test team called some friends over to "hey, look at this"--whereupon he showed them that you could get really good quality images of currency... but only if you used the "raw" settings from the twain image capture page.
Next stop
European law proposed to require this (Score:3, Informative)
-
In the context of protecting euro banknotes against counterfeiting the European Central Bank (ECB)invites manufacturers
based in the European Union (EU)and importers or
distributors of products capable of handling digital images
(hereinafter 'the industry ') to submit comments in connection
with the ECB's request to the Commission of the European
Communities to initiate legislation making it mandatory to
incorporate counterfeit deterrence technology into such
products.Such legislation would apply to products produced,
imported or distributed in the EU.Any individual,organisation
or group of organisations may submit comments. [mailto]
The comment period closed December 19th, but it might still be worthwhile to send in comments if you're in the EU.Black box for currency detection -- what next? (Score:4, Insightful)
They say it's not going to hurt performance, and I'd like to see this verified by comparing load times of large hi-res images (as used by graphics professionals every day) between previous photoshop versions and this new crippled version.
Even if such a test turns out to reveal whatever might arbitrarily be perceived as a 'reasonable' performance hit, it doesn't leave me overly inclined to upgrade (I am a licensed user of Photoshop 7.0.)
No matter how you bend it, such a black box is by any definition yet another a crippling feature, an abomination to productivity even if you never need to scan currency.
But what if you do? No law says you can't use currency texture for e.g. a finance related site. The mentioned two-week 'maybe' turnaround time on the written permission and dubious-quality sample set from the Bureau of Engraving is laughable for anyone in the graphics biz with deadlines measured in hours, not months.
While the black box spews a browser window [with a traceable referrer? someone post the URL please] and stops the load and does nothing more, you CAN evidently bypass the 'feature' without problem after this initial nuisance as described in the article. You just need to WORK a little more and your smooth graphics pipeline has suddenly become crippled and bent with a couple needless ninety-degree turns as bothersome as those in the Breezewood, PA I-70/I-78 interchange (but without the tacky motels).
So why is the black box even THERE? It's just ANOTHER performance retarding stopping block. Back in the day when Adobe first started bundling the annoying Digimarc watermark stuff with Photoshop, I was bristling over the substantial performance hit it had on everyday photoshop work. I DOWNGRADED to the previous version and stayed on that for several years.
Eventually the PCs increased in CPU muscle enough that it was no longer an 'issue' for me, and perhaps the digimarc stuff in the latter versions of photoshop was optimized, or whatever. All I'm saying is, THAT useless black box was there in the first place, so THIS is just another. Which one comes NEXT? Where does it END?
Will Photoshop, the good corporate patriot citizen, commission additional black boxes to detect things like:
- Drivers' licenses and passports
- All government-issued papers
- Corporate trademarks (with database of associated legal depts)
- Barcodes (cue:cat redux)
- Celebrities imagery of which subject to royalties
- Heads of state and top bureaucrats (to stem the fark.com floods of Dubya photoshops)
Gotta love feature creep. But no worry, soon as PCs clock 10 GHz, you will barely notice the extended load times.Re:Considered they might have been pushed? (Score:2, Funny)
I thought that was Humpty Dumpty....
Re:Considered they might have been pushed? (Score:5, Informative)
"The anti-counterfeit software in Photoshop CS was developed by the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group, an organization established by the governors of the G-10 central banks to promote the use of anti-counterfeit devices in the computer industry....The inner workings of the counterfeit deterrence system are so secret that not even Adobe is privy to them. The Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group provides the software as a black box without revealing its precise inner workings, Connor said."
Re:Considered they might have been pushed? (Score:5, Interesting)
How comfortable would you be using a "counterfeit deterrence system" that you had no idea how it works. Makes you wonder if it also has the capability to "phone home" when someone tries to make anything remotely resembling a banknote, or whether there are back doors.
Re:YRO? (Score:4, Interesting)
Central Banks will provide images (Score:3, Informative)
Re:YRO? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:YRO? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmm - but do you think the right time to complain about things like that, is when they already made their way into the law? It seems it might be more effective to make your concerns known earlier than that.
Re:YRO? (Score:5, Insightful)
Never assume that a device, law, or drug does exactly what it's supposed to do, and nothing else.
Re:YRO? (Score:5, Insightful)
Counterfeiting is specifically illegal, and is Not Our Right Anywhere, I did not see any suggestion or insinuation that it ought to be. However, having to pay a "big brother tax" for ill-conceived or impossible to implement "crime prevention" features is an idea that many find offensive.
On the other hand, while almost everyone I know uses photoshop, almost no one I know has actually paid for it, or could afford it. Obviously their crime prevention abilities are somewhat limited
Re:YRO? (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you think Adobe really cares? You download Photoshop at home and learn how to use it. You go in to work, and your company gets some new task which requires image editing. What are you going to tell your boss to buy?
Also, for the most part, an illegal copy of Photoshop usually does not mean one less copy of P
Re:Dupe? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:CYA? (Score:2, Interesting)
Adobe doesn't need to integrate 100% effective technology to prevent the duplication of currency. What they were trying to do was put in a nice little token positive to throw around if they ever got caught in a legal battle with Uncle Sam, if he ever said Adobe made it too easy to copy the currency effectively.
It's amazing what sort of stakeholder gain you get from adding in just a nice little tidbit feature like this. It looks good to Joe user,
Re:"Maybe if they didn't spend R&D time and mo (Score:3, Interesting)