Adobe Admits To Secret US Govt Program Code Is In Photoshop
 

WASHINGTON -- Adobe Systems Inc. acknowledged Friday it quietly added technology to the world's best-known graphics software at the request of government regulators and international bankers to prevent consumers from making copies of the world's major currencies.

The unusual concession has angered scores of customers.

Adobe, the world's leading vendor for graphics software, said the secretive technology "would have minimal impact on honest customers." It generates a warning message when someone tries to make digital copies of some currencies.

The U.S. Federal Reserve and other organizations that worked on the technology said they could not disclose how it works and would not name which other software companies include it in their products. They cited concerns that counterfeiters would try to defeat it.

"We sort of knew this would come out eventually," Adobe spokesman Russell Brady said. "We can't really talk about the technology itself."

A Microsoft Corp. spokesman, Jim Desler, said the technology was not built into versions of its dominant Windows operating system.

Rival graphics software by Taiwan-based Ulead Systems Inc. also blocks customers from making copies of currency.

Experts said the decision by Adobe represents one of the rare occasions when the U.S. technology industry has agreed to include third-party software code into commercial products at the request of government and finance officials.

Adobe revealed it added the technology after a customer complained in an online support forum about mysterious behavior by the new $649 "Photoshop CS" software when opening an image of a U.S. $20 bill.

Kevin Connor, Adobe's product management director, said the company did not disclose the technology at the request of international bankers. He said Adobe may add the detection mechanism to its other products.

"The average consumer is never going to encounter this in their daily use," Connor said. "It just didn't seem like something meaningful to communicate."

Angry customers have flooded Adobe's Internet message boards with complaints about censorship and concerns over future restrictions on other types of images, such as copyrighted or adult material.

"I don't believe this. This shocks me," said Stephen M. Burns, president of the Photoshop users group in San Diego. "Artists don't like to be limited in what they can do with their tools. Let the U.S. government or whoever is involved deal with this, but don't take the powers of the government and place them into a commercial software package."

Connor said the company's decision to use the technology was "not a step down the road towards Adobe becoming Big Brother."

Adobe said the technology slows its software's performance "just a fraction of a second" and urged customers to report unexpected glitches. It said there may be room for improvement.

The technology was designed recently by the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group, a consortium of 27 central banks in the United States, England, Japan, Canada and across the European Union, where there already is a formal proposal to require all software companies to include similar anti-counterfeit technology.

"The industry has been very open to understanding the nature of the problem," said Richard Wall, the Bank of Canada's representative to the counterfeit deterrence group. "We're very happy with the response."

Some policy experts were divided on the technology. Bruce Schneier, an expert on security and privacy, praised the anti-counterfeit technology.

Another security expert, Gene Spafford of Purdue University, said Adobe should have notified its customers prominently. He wondered how closely Adobe was permitted to study the technology's inner-workings to ensure it was stable and performed as advertised.

"If I were the paranoid-conspiracy type, I would speculate that since it's not Adobe's software, what else is it doing?" Spafford said.

:eek7 I wonder what else is in there.

Apparently you can get around it by importing from ImageReady, or by chopping up the image and reassembling. This was on Slashdot a couple of days ago, and some guy was saying that it's been a feature in photocopiers for years.

But what else is going on if you open a picture of currency in Photoshop? Does it secretly forward your ISP info to the Feds? Or you e-mail address?

Also it mentions the same technology can restrict the creation of adult pictures.

exactly what im thinking....
Also if your not connected to the net how the hell can any info be reported back to them?

US gov has to much power as it is :2 cents:

I'm sure they could take it a step further and install code in Photoshop that tags porn pics secretly and then they can be tracked covertly worldwide by govt. agencies to see whose downloading them, or creating them, or distributing them.

:BangBang:

Do you have a link for this news?

Wow, just thinking you could really do serious tracking and monitoring of people if the Feds have installed this technology into Microsoft Word, Outlook and MSN IM which are used by most everyone online.

All you'd have to do is have the code send an identifying IP Address along with their ISP to the FBI or NSA everytime someone types specific keywords when writing an e-mail, or an IM, or drafting a document in Word.

Now that's fucking scary Big Brother time.

move to Canada.

Every once in a while I think the govt is a bunch of beauracratic boobs that can't really have any command over the population, and then I hear some big brother news like this...

wow.

the world is a very scary place :(

Wouldn't zonealarm or any port/internet watcher/protection program pick that up?

You misunderstood what im saying tho....if You have no net comnnection whatsoever what good would it do to have this stuff inside software?

All the better reason to download a pirated version.

Has anyone tried opening an image of bill in Photoshop? What happens when you do?

Its so creepy to not really know what the hell is really buried in all the programs we use and surreptiously working in the background.

:Graucho True. Who buys PS retail anyway. :1orglaugh

http://home.comcast.net/~sumphatpimp/Twenty.jpg

see, I died

I think somebody jerks off

Page URL Not Found!!

The requested page does not exist on this server. The URL you typed or followed is either outdated or inaccurate.

So it creates a grid behind Washington and fucks up the Eagle on the back.

Messes up the shading on the letters up top also.

Currency today, porn tomorrow..."Sorry, Photoshop is unable to process this image due to double anal penetration restrictions."

Ah well, counterfeiters can still use open-source editors like Gimp.

Yeah no doubt it has bigger ramifications. I already hate that they have it connect to the internet on you and send information. Who knows what else they could have it doing at the governments request, what would the government do if they told them no?

I just grabbed them off Google.
I think this thing is BS

another Google

http://lightning.prohosting.com/~oli...ntydollars.jpg

The crazy thing about this is that any counterfieter could just use open source software to the same end without any restriction.

This is simply government/corporate back scratching which makes the polcymakers feel good but has no real impact on the problem they were trying to solve.

Just reading in that ZD article they've got it in the color printers now also.

No more quick $20's for beer money for a lot of college kids.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Nothing if you open it in an older version of Photoshop like 5.5 :)

Beer money are you kidding me, you use those bad boys to pay strippers in a nice dark strip club where they're getting 20's from a lot of different guys, or hookers and models. Anyone that doesn't use a pen to verify them.

:winkwink:

not cool. the addon might be good but they had to say it first, letting people discover it is weak...

Yes this is old news


Why would anyone care - its does not work well at all


BTW I did try this :


I open a high res image of a 20 bill, it opened fine.

I scanned a 20 bill, it would not open. So it does work, poorly.

It's not the government who's watching you.

lot of ways to counterfiet, the home pc is about the worst.

most of my high school class way back when went to the slammer for counterfieting draft cards.

I never got involved.

but then again I had to go to viet nam thet didn't (jail birds)

What was Adobe supposed to do? Those guys probably went in and told Adobe to obey or else they'll be struck with a billion dollar antitrust suit.

they should have told the customers. :2 cents:

Here's a link to the discussion on slashdot about this very matter if anyone's interested.

Adobe, is that a program?
:helpme

what was the guy doing trying to copy a $20 bill?

fucking idiot, thats a good way to get the secret service on your ass

you think all those microsoft browser and o/s 'service packs' just fix bugs?

mwahahahaha.....

That's been around for a long time...
Who knows what they're doing with it since 9/11

http://stopcarnivore.org/

nah, a non-nuclear armed Tomahawk Cruise missile is just launched at the users pc.

More big brother

\


that would be crazy, I'm sure as hell won't be upgrading anytime soon :glugglug

'Sorry, this level of adult material is not allowed to be viewed in your locale.'

is just around the corner...

V

no, thats a normal security thing no matter how you copy it - nothing to do with photoshop.

Try Linux, BSD or some other open source OS.

I have 3 pieces of closed source software on my computer (flash plugin, java sdk and the nvidia drivers), everything else I can download the source for and inspect/modify at will.

making a webmaster affiliate program?

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh Cool idea

no shit, ive used tons of photoshoped images of money in designs over the years (sponsor/affiliate designs). Hope they dont have my info :helpme

This is a very scarey precident.
If they (the government) had made this public initiall before going to Adobe - they would NOT be facing the public relations nightmare they are now.

Wow ...
but expected.
Since 911 - there's a lot more stuff going on then we realize.

I guess the idea is the honest people don't have to worry.