digital counterfeiting

[Maizoon]

Adobe Photoshop CS has built in protections that limit you from opening images of currency. Other image editing softwares apparently have this built in protection, but none have been named as of yet.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040110/ap_on_hi_te/copying_dollars_6

Quoted from the article:


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."


There will be patches to defeat these protections within 2-3 weeks. They say the honest customer has nothing to worry about. Thats all fine and dandy, but its the dishonest customers...the ones who know how and where to get the cracks/patches that make this whole thing pointless.

[inkblot]

Paintshop Pro has it too - they've had it longer I believe

[Mik3]

Limitation on $650 software, even if it does help the government.. that's just stupid.

Or maybe I'm talking about the price that's stupid...

[NeoDreamer]

I also believe this is stupid.

You can use any tool for good or for evil. In the case of Photoshop CS, you use it to lay out money for some school project or use it to counterfeit money.

A circle maker is good for geometry and also good for gouging someone's eyes out.
A rifle is good for hunting for food and also good for human murder.
A knife is good for preparing food and also good for stabbing someone.
etc...

But the circle maker, rifle (with a permit), and knife are all legal to use. In the essense of my government teacher, "if you take away one right, what's going to prevent people from taking away more rights?" In conclusion, censoring photoshop may lead to the inability to use basic everday tools.

[mlk]

haha im sure there are ways to open up currency images with CS - like maybe turn it upside down or take a screen shot and open the screenshot or 'slice' the images or hundreds of other ways to get around with this....

this is ridiculous....