MESSAGE
| DATE | 2004-10-02 |
| FROM | Mike Richardson - NYLXS PRESIDENT
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] [Fwd: [Politics] What Else is Tucked Away in ROM?] (fwd)
|
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2004 01:39:50 -0400
From: Michael L. Richardson
To: michael-nylxs
Subject: [Fwd: [Politics] What Else is Tucked Away in ROM?]
-----Forwarded Message-----
> From: Martin T. Focazio
> To: politics-at-lists.mx2pro.com
> Subject: [Politics] What Else is Tucked Away in ROM?
> Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 15:26:31 -0400
>
> Interesting....tucked into the ROM of imaging devices of all kinds is
> a money detector...
>
> http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/10/01/copying.dollars.ap/index.html
>
> WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. government will offer over the Internet
> low-quality images of its new $50 bill for artists, students and
> others who discover that their computers, scanners or printers won't
> allow them to view or copy pictures of the new currency.
>
> Uncle Sam is making sure that computers won't cooperate with would-be
> counterfeiters -- even as it tries to accommodate consumers who
> legitimately want or need images of the currency.
>
> The government said it also will consider individual requests for
> higher-quality images -- such as might be used in commercial art
> projects.
>
> The low-quality images, suitable for school projects and other uses,
> will be available free at www.moneyfactory.com, a Web site run by the
> Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The new $50 bill was introduced
> this week.
>
> "There is no limit on the ways that people may use images of
> currency. What we don't want is people whipping currency out of their
> pockets and making copies," said Eugenie Foster, cash project leader
> in the Federal Reserve Board's division of reserve bank operations
> and payment systems.
>
> Making these digital copies is getting harder, thanks to secretive
> anti-counterfeiting technology built into some popular consumer
> hardware and software products at the request of government
> regulators and international bankers.
>
> The technology detects and blocks attempts to view, scan or print
> copies of the redesigned $20 and $50 bills and, in a pop-up window,
> urges consumers to visit a Web site, www.rulesforuse.org, to learn
> about international counterfeit laws.
>
> The technology, known as the Counterfeit Deterrence System, was
> designed by a consortium of 27 central banks in the United States,
> England, Japan, Canada and across the European Union, the Central
> Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group.
>
> Its broad adoption represents one of the rare occasions when the U.S.
> technology industry has quietly agreed to requests by government and
> finance officials to include third-party software code in commercial
> products. Most companies have never publicly revealed to customers
> they include such counterfeit protections in products.
>
> Precisely how the technology works is a mystery. The U.S. government
> keeps its inner workings a closely guarded secret, arguing that
> disclosing too much information could help counterfeiters circumvent
> protections.
>
> It also has declined to identify which companies have agreed to add
> the technology in their products, although Kodak, Xerox, Adobe
> Systems, Ulead Systems and Hewlett-Packard are among those known to
> use it. The European Union is considering a proposal to require all
> software companies to include such anti-counterfeit technology.
>
> "We are very pleased with the amount of cooperation we've gotten,"
> said Foster, who serves as U.S. representative to the international
> anti-counterfeit group. "Most (companies) have recognized that
> counterfeit currency is a threat to their customers and the public."
>
> The Federal Reserve earlier this year denied a request and an appeal
> by The Associated Press under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act to
> learn some details about the system. The AP, which first revealed the
> program's existence in January, sought to learn whether the
> technology surreptitiously tracks consumers who try to copy bills,
> which U.S. agencies and private vendors built it, and how much it
> cost.
>
> The reserve's board of governors told the AP it located a stack of
> papers 52 inches tall about the mysterious technology but agreed to
> release only 14 pages. It said the other documents represented trade
> secrets, internal letters or law enforcement procedures that couldn't
> be disclosed under the information act.
>
> One document obtained by the AP, a 1998 U.S. government business
> solicitation, mandated that "any color printer must include a tracing
> system that encodes system identification in any output. This will
> tie the output to the originating equipment so that forensic
> identification of the equipment is possible in the event of illegal
> printing of currency images due to failure or circumvention of the
> recognition system(s)...."
>
> Other papers turned over to the AP said the anti-counterfeit
> technology "does not have the capacity to track the use of a personal
> computer or digital imaging tool."
>
> Foster also said the technology doesn't trace attempts to copy bills.
>
> "The only thing this system does is prevent someone from making a
> copy of a currency note," she said. "It does not trace or report back
> any information about the individual."
>
> Foster said the counterfeit protections built into consumer products
> recognize only the newly redesigned $20 and $50 bills, but upcoming
> changes to other currencies also will be expected to trigger the
> system.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Politics mailing list
> Politics-at-lists.mx2pro.com
> http://lists.lists.mx2pro.com/mailman/listinfo/politics
--
"In The Business World
An Executive Knows Something About Everything,
A Technician Knows Everything About Something,
And the Switchboard Operator Knows Everything."
No one person is smarter than their team!
____________________________
NYLXS: New Yorker Free Software Users Scene
Fair Use -
because it's either fair use or useless....
NYLXS is a trademark of NYLXS, Inc
|
|
