atw: Re: pdf security

Copying currency using scanners, printers and so on has been monitored
by the equipment if it was intelligent enough for some time. Whether the
drivers have the smarts to stop the thing happening and contact security
services is quite another matter; look, lets face it - impossible
(fiction in other words). 

The US Secret Service does not handle currency violations like
counterfeiting btw - the US is like most western countries in that a
federal police or equivalent investigate mostly - unless there is a
conspiracy involving political influence of the highest level, such as
the incidents North Korea has been heavily implicated in). Generally the
CIA would be involved before the US Secret Service was called in. It
would be a very unusual situation. 

I found out about the currency scanning many years ago when I tried to
scan some Australian money and the scanning software had a spit - I
think I was trying it as a result of an email someone sent me. When I
also attempted to scan it into PhotoShop (out of curiosity - well! You
should have seen the grief that caused the system. It got really cranky
and I think it may have stopped me). 

I wasn't visited by the federal police, ASIO, MI5, KGB, Martians or the
US Secret Service. 

Regards,
Warren 

-----Original Message-----
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jonathan
Moffett
Sent: Thursday, 28 May 2009 11:09
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: pdf security


Rhonda's research confirms a fundamental fact. Adobe would most
certainly lock down any passworded PDF files. A Russian programmer was
selling a program to unlock such files. A few years back he attended a
conference in the US and was promptly arrested. His program was a crime
in the US (thanks to the DMCA) but not in Russia. I don't know whether
it is still available.

I asked an experienced developer why a simple reader should be so large.
He claimed it was because it had to be able to check whether it was
printing currency (presumably US). I was skeptical until I read someone
had delved into a printer driver to discover code that would send a
message to the US Secret Service. Most people know this organisation is
charged with protecting the US president. Its main purpose is to chase
down currency counterfeiting. I am still a bit skeptical but currency
detection by printing programs sounds almost weird enough to be true. 

There are alternatives to the Adobe reader and Adobe products:
http://www.cogniview.com/convert-pdf-to-excel/post/pdf-editing-creation-
50-open-sourcefree-alternatives-to-adobe-acrobat/

--
  Jonathan Moffett
  moff28@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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