You bring up a great point. In my opinion, the most important point made so far. There has been a break in trust. No software company should ever remove an ability from it's software without notifying it's user base. A change of this size should have been well documented and published. I don't think it would have mattered to sales of CS. It acutally should have been proactivly marketed. I'm somewhat surprized that the new feature didn't get gobbled up by marketing. "Hey look at Adobe, helping to stamp out counterfeiting" Then make the block configureable with the ability to remove it upon some application or proof of reason to need.
Nagash,
I write all kinds of software, from applications to keep score at baseball games on IPaqs ($50 per copy), to construction estimating software ($5,000 per copy). I've been writing software since 1976 and have seen it all, done it.... Well maybe not done it all, but if feels like it some time. I've written software for the 911 communication industry and scheduleing software used by the US military to schedule resources for combat operations and deployments.
Let's say you, as a US business owner, decide to "forget" to disclose some of your company's earned income on your corporate tax return. Let's say, some way, some how, the IRS finds out. Did you break the law? Why, yes, you did. Is your company (and, depending on how it's incorporated, it's principals) going to be required to "suffer the consequences" of this? Why, yes, it will.
Once more, this is NOT about censorship. This is about disclosure.
In case any of you are interested, this is the "hot topic du jour" on every major graphics message board out there. Because Adobe does not localise and distribute based on country but, rather, does localise based on language it, very well, might have violated laws in many, many countries by not disclosing this feature. If law suits are filed (and, believe me, this topic is, also, being discussed) and an investigation opened, this could be an international scandal.
I doubt it is censorship as much as it is covering their butts. Adobe doesn't want liability for aiding the counterfiting of money, a federal crime that is investigated by the secret service.
Edited by Sectarian on Jan 09, 2004 at 05:02 PM GMT
O.K. no argument from me. Adobe should have disclosed the change or addition of the restriction if for no other reason than good consumer relations. I suspect they never thought it would be a big issue.
Adobe should have dsiclosed,. that is the issue,. IMHO,. (well said Eileen)
The motives for the CDS ( ROFLMAO! ) was most likely the result of our litiginous society.
If Cigarette manufactueres can be liable for someone smoking them selves to death,. If gun manufactureres can be held liable for a Postal worker snapping and waxing his co-workers... if paint manufactueres can be held liable for lead poisoning because some slum loard has allowed the tenents kids to eat the paint thats pealing in the apartment since 1934 when the paint was still legal...
..Then Adobe NEEDS to cover it's own tail from a lawsuit.
Couldn't resist...
tried and could not even get it INTO PS CS!
Law permits you to make 3/4 size and under, 1 1/2 size and over single sided.
Oh well, I guess that is one evening I won't waste playing with an image of money.
Hmmm, wonder waht I could waste an evening doing instead!
"Kevin Connor, Adobe's product management director, said the company did not disclose the technology in Photoshop's instructions at the request of international bankers. He said Adobe is looking at adding the detection mechanism to its other products."
"The creator of the technology, Digimarc, confirmed that it had produced the code under contract to the banking group, but wouldn't discuss any details.
"Due to the nature of the project, all the players and details are confidential," said Leslie Constans. Jasc, the maker of Paintshop Pro, couldn't be reached for comment.
Little information exists on the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group (CBCDG).
"
Now let me get this right.
Adobe added code that they dont know what it does.
Well.. This revelation has been quite interesting to say the least. I am certainly not inconvenienced by this limitation, but it does get one thinking..
.... I wonder if this feature might be tied into CS connecting back to Adobe server via the internet.....
Think about it. You use Adobe to open a file with scanned pictures of currency. CS connects back to adobe with information gathered from your PC whch could be passed on to God knows where, suddenly your name is in some database.. A long shot...maybe... but who knows.
Does anyone know the reason why CS tries to connectt o Adobes server ocaisionally? It is not daily or weekly, but once or twice per month Zone Alarm shows it connecting to Adobe even though it has been registered and activated for months.. What more information could they possibly need?
As i said. I am not inconvenienced by this Image detection "feature" in the least but their secrecy on this matter does leave me feeling quite uneasy.
Throughout this whole thing, I've been centered not on the fact that Adobe has implemented a feature that prohibits the scanning/opening/"whatever" of an image that contains an unauthorised bill, but on the lack of disclosure and the violation of trust. But, I have to admit the following, taken from a Zdnet article, makes me stop in my tracks and think on a more literal level:
"The current implementation does not take into account your intent," said Adobe's Connor, who characterized the curtailing of artists rights as just "changing the source of where you would get the images."
Adobe has taken it upon itself to not only deny US citizens of their rights without providing disclosure - but to also deny citizens of other countries of their rights - and has done so with the help of an organisation that not only is not available for comment, but that very little is known about
I, usually, stay away from "conspiracy theories" - but I have to admit, right now, I'm beginning to believe what's being said or implied might, in fact, be correct.
eileen in bc (resident of canada, citizen of the us, first generation american, feeling really, really angry - and hurt - right now)
"Another security expert, Gene Spafford of Purdue University, said Adobe should have notified its customers prominently. He wondered how closely Adobe was permitted to study the technology's inner-workings to ensure it was stable and performed as advertised.
"If I were the paranoid-conspiracy type, I would speculate that since it's not Adobe's software, what else is it doing?" Spafford said.
The thing about tricks like this,. is it BEGS for hacks,.
All the poor gamers out there (and if you aren't a PC gamer you don't know how bad this is) shell out $50.00 for a game that relies on a SUPER BUGGY "CD-Check" to ensure that the CD is there and thus the game is not pirated,. unfortunatelyt "CD-Check" software is about the least stable thing on a PC,. the act of forcing a high frame rate game with gobs of Ram and Vidie RAM invested in play, to STOP dead in it's tracks so the game can randomly acces the pathetically slow CD-ROM drive across the god forsaken ASPI layer to the IDE channel on the tired old PCI bus,...
It Guarantees a lock up... frozen with usually a cold reboot to get you going again, and the loss of possibly hours invested in the level.
The "NoCD" hack isn't for Piracy,. it is so the damn game is actually playable!
... sorry I'm off on a tangent,.
..my point was, this stuff is done to the software and it has nothing to do with the product itself,. Every tom dick and Bil Gates feels the need now to load up there software with personal freedom robbing spyware,.
...and now banking industry backed (and maybe Federal? ) booby traps!
AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!
And the courts are putting 12 year old girls in jail for trading mp3s!
