Xerox Exploits Printer Flaws To Make Pseudo-Holograms 187
Red Wolf writes "A chance discovery by Xerox lets printers superimpose glossy images on regular printouts, creating the possibility for document authentication along the lines of holograms on credit cards. The new technology, called Glossmark, can use ordinary office printers to superimpose a glossy image on an ordinary printed document in a way that can't be photocopied or otherwise easily reproduced."
I know what to copy (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory Joke... (Score:5, Funny)
But it's true... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But it's true... (Score:4, Informative)
They apparently are considering using the exploit decoratively instead of for security, since it is always possible to forge something made by "common office printers."
Re:But it's true... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Obligatory Joke #2 (Score:5, Funny)
Credit card to charge up $9000 in stereo equipment: $0
Same credit card, Quad-CPU, 16 gigs RAM, 1 terrabyte machine with all the latest blings: $0
A lawyer that can use the "it was a bug in the printer" defense to successfully get you off: Priceless.
Re:Obligatory Joke #2 (Score:5, Funny)
Paying that lawyer with the same card: even more priceless.
Re:Obligatory Joke #2 (Score:4, Interesting)
But only because some morons didn't get that the SI-prefixes were Base 2 when it came to storage capacity and Base 10 when it came to bandwidth. I mean, of course we have subtle little secrets and speak in code words, we're computer geeks goddammit.
The kibi-, gibi-, and tebi- are the new abominations (imo) used to describe the old-school Base 2, thus a kibibyte is 1024 bytes (whereas a kilobyte was 1024 bytes in the "good old days"), and now a kilobyte it 1000 bytes.
Re:Obligatory Joke #2 (Score:3, Informative)
The IEC. It isn't exactly a redefinition, since AFAIK kilobyte wasn't officially defined as a unit by many standards organizations. Kibi- and friends were coined because standards bodies are by their nature incredibly pedantic, so overloading the SI prefixes was out of the question.
There was an alternative proposal to prefix binary units with 'di-', so 1024 bytes would be a diki
Re:Obligatory Joke #2 (Score:2)
Re:Obligatory Joke #2 (Score:2)
Consider that even in the computing field there are many things measured in the decimal units rather than binary - for example Fast Ethernet is 100 megabits per second.
You're right about 'byte'; truly pedantic documents (like international standards) s
Re:Obligatory Joke #2 (Score:2)
I don't think it's a problem in practice, though. You can usually figure out which 'kilo' is intended from the context. Right now I think 'kibi' is probably more confusing, just because no one has any idea what it is.
Anyway, one of my goals in life i
Great security... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great security... (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with their "security" is that I don't think it would be that hard to use a non-standard scanning technique to pick a decent scan of the gloss. It would just take some creative scanning, some image processing, and trial and error to get it right. If there's any motivation to do it then it can be done without too much difficulty.
To detal one plan, scan it in the usualy way to get the base image. Then use a camera to get digital photos of it from a variety of angles that maximize the gloss. Map the original scan onto the new gloss images and subtract the base image out of the gloss. Hand tweak the glossmap. Viola! Print!
The method I described would probably have poor resolution in the glossmap, but (1) the glossmap is probably a low resolution process anyway and (2) you can get a high rez glossmap if you just put in more work.
I suggest that Xerox drop any "security" pretense for this feature and just include it as a cool extra ability. Glossmaps are a million times easier to copy than a hologram. They are useless for security.
-
Re:Great security... (Score:2)
C'mon, they can't even play their parts half the time. And you're expecting them to do light office-work too?
Wait.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Wait.... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Wait.... (Score:1, Funny)
You're being silly! Stop it! (sorry, was just playing the monty python mod for NWN)
Security? How? (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh, except for on another Xerox printer?
Re:Security? How? (Score:2, Informative)
The document can still be reproduced, the point is -- the pseudo-hologram can not. If the document is missing the pseudo-hologram, you know that it has been duplicated.
Re:Security? How? (Score:2)
even if it's a fairly intricate graphic reproducing on a computer something that would pass for the original is typically fairly easy
to quote Xerox: Can be produced by existing Xerox printing solutions
So anyone with the correct Xerox printer now has the ability to create a close copy of your document, complete with the pseudo-hologram
Re:Security? How? (Score:2)
It's a way to print a pattern or message out of a series of shiny/non-shiny patches on the paper. But if you look at it from top-down (the same way a scanner views a document) the changes are not visible.
So, you could print "Look for the logo between these lines: ---| @@ |--- " and if the person reading it doesn't see it, they can hopefully suspect a forgery.
This would be good for coupons, low-value stuff. You wo
Re:Security? How? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Security? How? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Security? How? (Score:2)
Considering the graphic they show is a ticket, and considering the care given by your typical ticket taker who is probably ripping 5000 tickets that day, my guess is that they WOULD think it authentic. I mean, it's not like they have microscopes out there at the gate...
My guess is that MOST applications that MAY want to use this as a security measure wouldn't be putting the documents under intense scrutiny.
Re:Security? How? (Score:2)
Cracking security on a PDF file is ridiculously easy. Using exiting software (software that happens to be designed for other purposes), it would take you about 2 minutes max to crack all the restrictions on a "protected" PDF, leaving it wide open.
Unfortunately, thanks to 1201 (b)(1)(B) [eff.org]--i.e., the DMCA---you'll have to figure out the "how" part on your own.
How is this secure..... (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:How is this secure..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How is this secure..... (Score:2)
Not difficult at all, due to the use of "glossy"... In fact, that makes it somewhat easier
Scan it normally, then scan it under artificially bright illumination (probably need to modify a scanner, but they cost what, $30?). The glossy parts will saturate, which you can then use as a mask to separate the gloss from the regular print.
Congrats, Xerox, you've come up with yet another insecure way of making us feel safer.
It can be reproduced. Just not copied. (Score:1)
It can't be reproduced or copied. Unless you own a Xerox printer I guess:
Can be produced by existing Xerox printing solutions.
I don't really see how this works. If there's a document I want to fake I just whip out Quark and reproduce the Glossmark on my Xerox
Re:It can be reproduced. Just not copied. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Can be produced" isn't the same as "can be reproduced." Sure, I guess you could print out your own copies -- if you had access to the original images. If I understand correctly, most of the point is that you can't just scan the image and retain the glossmark effect.
Re:It can be reproduced. Just not copied. (Score:2)
And then... (Score:5, Funny)
Let's see... Mouse, GUI, Ethernet, Palm Graffiti, WYSIWYG word processors, and more [everything2.com]
Color laserjets? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sure some hackers will try to do some mods on their printers to control this as well. {cough}fake holograms{/cough}
On another note, how cool a job do these "Xerox Scientists" have? I need to get a job where I can hardware hack like these guys.
Re:Color laserjets? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the books I've read about Xerox, it sounds more frustrating than cool to work in their R&D. You invent all this neat shit, and the copierheads at Xerox dont "get" it, so Xerox doesn't market it.
Your only hope is to go to work for the other company that will eventually pick up the technology and make a mint with it, or to leave and found your own company to make what you invented.
And with all the "intellectual property" crap being thrown into employment contracts these days, the latter of those two options is probably right out the door. If Bob Metcalfe was working at Xerox these days, he damn sure wouldn't be allowed to leave and start 3Com to sell ethernet hardware that he whipped up on Xerox's dime.
Re:Color laserjets? (Score:2)
Which laws have changed to prohibit this. If you`re talking about civil law (contracts) most companies have included pretty restrictive rules for years.
Re:Color laserjets? (Score:3, Interesting)
(No, I don't work for HP, but I do work for a document output consultancy)
Re:Color laserjets? (Score:4, Interesting)
Great. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Great. (Score:5, Funny)
What, like the ridiculously high licensing fees on your mouse, your GUI, your network... ;-)
You are a little off (Score:3, Funny)
-Charlie
(Yes, once again, sarcasm, I do know my history).
Flash in the pan... (Score:1)
reproduce at home.. (Score:1)
So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Interesting)
In the mean time, some counterfeiter who has the same technology in their office or home will simply copy the main image and recreate the superimposed image in a graphics program. Then he will be able to print "authentic" tickets or whatever whenever he wants.
The number one blockade in stopping conterfeiters is the machine that produces the items they want to counterfeit, not the complexity of the artwork or image. Sure, the complex image and holograph help, but that is mainly because consumer level and most business level products can't produce images that complex. Give me a few months and I could make a damn good couterfeit $20 bill if I only had the paper and the press that makes them. It wouldn't be perfect, but the average cashier wouldn't notice.
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:3, Informative)
Which is exactly why both the company that produces the paper and the company that produces the printing press are under contractual obligation not to sell either to anyone but the US government.
"Contractual obligation," you say? I pity the poor fool who tries to go behind the federal government's back when it comes to the money it prints. And you thought IRS audits were bad...
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:1)
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:4, Informative)
And your aunt could be your uncle, if she only had balls and a dick.
You might get the paper by bleaching one-dollar bills, but you damn sure ain't getting the press. The Intaglio process used on U.S. currency applies the ink to the paper at great pressure, and in sufficient quantity to achieve an embossed effect. U.S. currency has a distinctive feel because of this, and were you to slip an inkjet or color laser-printed bleached-single $20 bill into a stack of $20s you used to pay for something, the cashier would notice it didn't feel right before he/she noticed it didn't look right.
Intaglio presses are huge, somewhat rare, and cost in the millions of dollars, so you ain't gonna but putting one in your basement anytime soon. If you had the financial capability to do so, you wouldn't need to counterfeit money.
Having said that, the Secret Service does have counterfeit bills produced by Intaglio presses, and believe that they are being produced by the government of some country hostile to the U.S.-- because that's the kind of moxie it takes to get your hands on an Intaglio press.
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:1)
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:2)
Also, someone stated somewhere that during the early years of Soviet Russia, Czarist-Russian style banknotes printed the government in order to give the impression the economic fracas was due to past policy.
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:2)
Actually I think there's a decent amount of evidence that the perfect counterfeits are coming from Russia. (And thus probbably produced by the Russian mafia.) IIRC the percentage of perfect countefeits is higher in Russia than anywher
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:2)
And some times, you may not care that it is obvious.
There's decent evidence that the US has done exactly this in recent conflicts, at least in Iraq I and Bosnia. Google around for it if you're interested.
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:2, Funny)
Because if it's on the internet, it must be true!!
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:2)
It would also be considerably harder to perform a currency attack on the US simply because it's the largest single economy in the world. ($10 trillion GDP in 2001, vs
That's what he *said*. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but then if you re-read the post you're replying to, that's exactly what he said. It's not the artwork that's stopping him from making a good counterfeit, it's the lack of ability to obtain the machinery to do it.
Making something "authentic" is relatively easy when the machinery is in every store. The Xerox machine can't make anything not easily counterfeited because everybody could get one cheaply and affordably, and then simply print out their own Glossmark crap.
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:2, Funny)
Yes, and I could build a nuclear bomb if I only had some nuclear... and a bomb.
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:2)
I think that is the funniest sig I have ever seen :)
details? how? (Score:3, Interesting)
When they say "current printers," it sounds like ours would just need a driver upgrade or something. I don't know how that's possible, but I don't know much about hardware and drivers. I'm also curious whether they'll charge for this new "feature" or just include it as an upgrade. Or whether it will only be available on newer high end printers despite working on current technology.
Re:details? how? (Score:4, Insightful)
-You print the document as normal.
-On the repeat print, the "watermark" image color pattern matches the document you already printed. In essence, you double-up on the toner placed down in particular locations to make the Glossmark image. Viewed straight on, the extra-heavy toner pattern is indistinguishable from the rest of the printing as the color is the same, but the glossy surface is seen when viewed at an angle.
It's just a guess, but it seems to make sense.
Re:details? how? (Score:2)
Perhaps they make the laser more intense or move it more slowly or do a second laser pass without ink.
-
Re:details? how? (Score:2)
- The details about how the glossy images are printed are NOT in the article.
- They are not printing Wax onto paper.
- They are using Laser, not Inkjet printers.
Nothing you said about the technology or the article was accurate.
Re:details? how? (Score:2)
Article text for slow connections: (Score:1, Informative)
On Thursday, the company is unveiling a new technology it calls "Glossmark," which can use ordinary office printers to superimpose a glossy image on an ordinary printed document in a way that can't be photocopied or otherwise easily reproduced.
Taking advantage of eccentricities in laser printing processes, once viewed as flaws, the Xerox scientists think they've found a wa
Re:Article text for slow connections: (Score:1, Informative)
Whilest I'm quite familiar with the
TS
Re:Article text for slow connections: (Score:2)
Unless... (Score:2, Redundant)
basically looks like watermarking (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't look really useful for preventing professional counterfieting, but for "casual" things [retail reciepts, HR files, inter-company corrospandance, etc.] It could come in handy for quick verification.
Not inkjets... (Score:1)
Re:basically looks like watermarking (Score:2)
LS
Silly question... (Score:3, Interesting)
Just a thought
Rus
Re:Silly question... (Score:2)
It would be a major strain on your eyes though, considering it's sort of a hologram and all....
You know what I mean?
Re:Silly question... (Score:2, Insightful)
Holograms have a bit more depth than 2 layers, however.
was this a serious question? I can never tell these days if someone is just acting, or being...
Hmmm (Score:5, Funny)
can't be photocopied? (Score:1)
1) place document on surface
2) mount digital SLR camera on tripod
3) tilt surface or camera until image appears
4) Xerox OCR
5) reprint using Xerox Glossmark
6)
7) profit!
This can't be legal (Score:5, Funny)
Its not a hologram people. (Score:3, Informative)
Its interesting, though pretty much common sense, if you have run a sheet thru a printer 15 times.. ( and pray it doesn't jam.. the structure of paper is changed when it passes thru a fuser.. every time after that you risk paper jams. )
Xerox Exploits Printer Flaws... (Score:5, Funny)
Yet another sad commentary on the rampant cover-ups of the true nature of the pseudo-hologram industry.
From the site.... (Score:2)
Speaking Of Documents (Score:1, Offtopic)
not layered prints (Score:3, Informative)
just my 2c,
-ry
No wonder. (Score:5, Funny)
No wonder Xerox is struggling. While other companies are busy developing new products Xerox techs are destracted by shiny objects.
"Oooh, shiny!!!"
My guess how it works (Score:3, Informative)
When you print continuous tone images with specific ink colors, you have to lay down tiny dots that cover, e.g. 30% of the paper with cyan, 20% magenta, 10% yellow, 15% black. The inks are then fixed in some way: heating, rolling, burnishing or whatever--details vary based on printing technology.
If you put down the ink so that the cyan and yellow dots are: separated by a small gap; or touching each other; or piled up on top of each other; you will get different print characteristics.
It may be e.g., that when wax-based ink drops are piled on top of each other, the burnishing gives it a glossy texture, while the same amounts of inks distributed in separate dots gives a matte finish. (This is just an example based on absolutly no specific knowledge.)
Postscript and other printer control languages are sufficiently expressive that the software can control where the ink dots go. This lets the glossiness be controlled.
This posting is probably a DMCA violation.
I think they missed something. . . (Score:2)
Unless you have an ordinary office printer.
The real point (Score:2)
The point is not that this enables forging.
What it does is provide a much cheaper means for everyday users to produce gloss-watermarked documents that are much harder to forge casually.
Yes the same technology can be used to produce gloss-watermarks for forging, but would require a much harder set of steps (the gloss-watermarks claim to be unscannable). The one down side, gullible people might accept gloss-watermarked doc
i was wishing for this all my life... (Score:2)
I would market with one little company, a special type of thin transparent paper that could go through a regular ink jet (and with a special ink jet cartridge) that could create high quality holograms. Sold obstensibly for "document security" their may purpose would be for faking the holograms on driver's licenses.
Then I would have another company se
Re:i was wishing for this all my life... (Score:2)
Finally... (Score:2, Insightful)
oh yeah.. (Score:2)
Isn't that called marketing?
Re:i'm rich (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:i'm rich (Score:1, Funny)
"Did you read the article?"
You must be new to Slashdot. Welcome!
Re:Currency (Score:5, Funny)
So the ink is a little smudged, but look at the glossy square with JFK in it. It has to be real!
Re:Currency (Score:3, Informative)
Ahem, where exactly are you going to get the paper to print it on? US currency paper has a special cotton content that you can't get in the states, even by special order. And what about the "security stripe"? Nope, sorry.
Re:Currency (Score:2)
Surely someone with sufficient know-how should be able to make his own batches in his basement though right? What do you really need for raw material? Wood pulp, cotton fibers, and whatever they use for red and blue fibers (dyed cotton??). Whatever it is, I doubt you can stop people from making their own.
Re:Currency (Score:3, Informative)
Paper currency in the US is printed
Re:Currency (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Currency (Score:2)
Re:Currency (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Currency (Score:3, Interesting)
While I don't think Xerox printers can handle such small pieces of papter without choking, based on PBS and Discovery channel educational shows on the subject, you can obtain the paper from already printed bills or from foreign currency. Counterfeiters used to chemically remove the ink from small denomination bills and reprint them.
It's why the US Gov added that metal strip into the 20+ bills with the denomination written into them.
Dalton paper is used around the world for government documents, so t
Re:Currency (Score:2)
Remove ink from a legitimate low-denomination note, print with higher denomination. This works because US currency holds consistent size across denominations.
The security stripe is not present in older notes (pre-1990 I believe). Forge notes of series 1977.
Re:Currency (Score:3, Informative)
I hope this gets used on US currency. Holograms haven't been used yet because they haven't survived the torture tests. Maybe this will fare better.
This tech takes advantage of the way laser printers melt toner to produce an image on paper. It would only work if currency was laser imaged. That won't happen b/c the process is too slow and it certainly wouldn't survive a torture test.
The drawback that I see is that it only works on images--plain text wouldn't have enough toner laid down to produce a noticea
Re:Huh?? (Score:1)
It's no easier to fake than forging a signature. Its a pain in the ass and if you looked really close, you could probably tell the original from a reproduction. So what?
This would be great for corporate correspondence, and things like that. Digital signatures are much more stupid (by which I mean printing a bitmap of a guys signature out). Anyone could scan and reproduce it. A glossmarked signature type thing would be find a ton