Future Copy

[Arthur Abraham <a2@well.sf.ca.us>]

Somehow, I think some of the readers of this list will find
this interesting, I don't know why.

Popular Science: April 1993

"Color Copiers
Countering Counterfeiters

An unfortunate result of advances in color copiers is that it
is now easier to counterfeit currency.  To make it more
difficult, Cannon has developed two defenses.  One is a
currency-recognition technology similar to that used in
vending machines.  But Canon has enhanced the technology to
recognize a bill regardless of its orientation of it it's
among a clutter of material.  In a demonstration, a Canon
official tried to copy a Japanese bill.  The copier sounded an
alarm and spit out a piece of paper with a blackened rectangle
where the image should have been.

"Once a bill is recognized, we could do anything -- have the
machine stop, sound an alarm, or, it it's connected to a phone
line, call the police,' the official says.  The copier will
recognize as many currencies as possible.

A second feature traces counterfeiters of official documents. 
Each copier embeds a code into the copied image, which is
impossible to see.  A special scanner extracts the code and a
computer program then furnishes the copier's serial number,
allowing identification of the registered purchaser of the
machine.

With the new anti-counterfeiting technology, Canon can also
include a two-sided copying feature previously omitted from
its color copiers."

Of course, the second to the last paragraph is most
interesting, along these lines:
     a. how are they doing that?
     b. is this preserved on a second, third, etc. generation
copy?
     c. it is likely that computer scanning and OCR defeats
this.
     c. anybody posting to whistleblowers should be aware of
these new machines, and learn how to identify them, and their
products. 



-a2.