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Adobe Photoshop: Counterfeit deterrence system

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Re: Adobe Photoshop: Counterfeit deterrence system

#131
post #46

Is it legal to host an ultra high resolution image of a dollar bill?

Yes.

I always thought it would be interesting if someone were able to create an image that wasn't CSAM, but that would nevertheless be falsely flagged as CSAM by the detection algorithms. That would potentially be a great way to cause someone a lot of headaches by sending seemingly innocent pictures that would inadvertently put them on a watchlist.

This seems much easier to exploit though assuming some devices / applications will notify the FBI with enough suspicious activity. I guess it depends if counterfeiting is taken as seriously as CSAM.

Re: Adobe Photoshop: Counterfeit deterrence system

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, very definitely so but I was a little short of funds at the time having moved from Vienna Austria to Australia (the move cost me over $10,000 USD). Nevertheless I'd managed to keep the note for the better part two years before I exchanged it at a Commonwealth Bank in Australia for which I recall I received around $730 AUD (roughly $500 USD). Whilst the note has no monetary value today (having been superseded by…

^ This is why I love HN. Thank you for sharing an interesting story with us.

Quite vividly written indeed

Re: Adobe Photoshop: Counterfeit deterrence system

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making Monopoly money for the kids? You cannot make counterfeit currency with Photoshop. Paper money has security features that won't even convert to pixels in the first place, like holograms, transparencies and fibers embedded in the paper and such, never mind reproduce by conventional printing. This whole deterrence system is idiotic. People who accept an obviously fake printed copy of a banknote basically deserve…

At least in the US, ‘old’ bills are still legal tender. A counterfeit bill pre-holograms and recent security stuff is still usable in public.

What? No. Bills from the Confederacy or issued by state banks aren’t.

Re: Adobe Photoshop: Counterfeit deterrence system

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. There are relatively few visual cues for laypeople to detect counterfeit older (and even moderately recent) US dollar bills. There are no UV sensitive areas, the watermark line is rather faint and there's no special stuff like holographic images, transparent inserts or metal foils etc. The only way I've really seen people check medium denomination ($10s, $20s, $50s) bills is via an iodine pen test which would r…

Some people (James Randi in particular) spray starch on real bills to increase the false negative rate. http://archive.randi.org/site/jr/070105quality.html#7 That link also contains an account of the problems someone faced when using that technique.

What are other causes that make the pen fail? How does starch randomly end up on money?

Re: Adobe Photoshop: Counterfeit deterrence system

#135
post #51
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, as I'm totally oblivious to this - how does one patch a closed source binary to get around this protection?

Everyone else has mentioned the easy part - replacing the function entry with "return not money" The hard part is finding where that is. One approach is to start with the error string - find it in the file and put a memory-read breakpoint on it in the debugger. Trigger the error and capture the call stack - start working up the chain until you identify why that text was read, either the failure directly or a message…

> start with the error string - find it in the file

This has never ever worked for me, unless it was some prepared example. There just never are any meaningful strings in the EXE.

Re: Adobe Photoshop: Counterfeit deterrence system

#136
post #51
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, as I'm totally oblivious to this - how does one patch a closed source binary to get around this protection?

Everyone else has mentioned the easy part - replacing the function entry with "return not money" The hard part is finding where that is. One approach is to start with the error string - find it in the file and put a memory-read breakpoint on it in the debugger. Trigger the error and capture the call stack - start working up the chain until you identify why that text was read, either the failure directly or a message…

I'm trying to disassemble photoshop CS4 wish me good luck because it seems they pretty hide it

Re: Adobe Photoshop: Counterfeit deterrence system

#137
post #110

Years ago I had an Austrian 5000 Schilling note in absolute mint condition. It was a beautiful note with an image of Mozart on it but it was too expensive for me to keep just to admire (~$500 USD) so I cashed it in for local currency. (Also, it had to be converted as the Schilling was being made obsolete by the Euro.) However before I did I wanted to keep a permanent record of it so I scanned it in the highest resolu…

As EURion was introduced in 1996, it looks like only the S500 and S1,000 from 1997 got the treatment[0] so you should be good to print it (in relation to EURion, other policies/laws might still apply) [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation#Usage

Yeah. I'm not sure if I still have that 900MB tif but this has spurred me on to look for it. If I find it I'll take another careful look to see if it's embedded or not.

Re: Adobe Photoshop: Counterfeit deterrence system

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, very definitely so but I was a little short of funds at the time having moved from Vienna Austria to Australia (the move cost me over $10,000 USD). Nevertheless I'd managed to keep the note for the better part two years before I exchanged it at a Commonwealth Bank in Australia for which I recall I received around $730 AUD (roughly $500 USD). Whilst the note has no monetary value today (having been superseded by…

^ This is why I love HN. Thank you for sharing an interesting story with us.

Thanks, you're most welcome. Same to tomcam (below). :-)

Re: Adobe Photoshop: Counterfeit deterrence system

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in the US, ‘old’ bills are still legal tender. A counterfeit bill pre-holograms and recent security stuff is still usable in public.

This. There are relatively few visual cues for laypeople to detect counterfeit older (and even moderately recent) US dollar bills. There are no UV sensitive areas, the watermark line is rather faint and there's no special stuff like holographic images, transparent inserts or metal foils etc. The only way I've really seen people check medium denomination ($10s, $20s, $50s) bills is via an iodine pen test which would r…

Who benefits from this? I do not believe it is anything other than deliberate.

For decades the US money has been substandard compared to what other developed countries use.

By comparison US dollars are like cheapskate Monopoly money, given the colours of the notes are the same.

Cheques and hand written signatures for credit card purchases have survived far too long in the US, the French had PIN in shops in the 1980's with nobody complaining about the lack of bounced cheques with forged signatures.

Please fill me on the cultural differences I am missing. Why does the US have a currency that seems practically designed for forgery and smuggling?

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