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Does your scanner prevent scanning money ?

Modelworks

Modelworks

Lifer
I had heard that some scanners had tech to prevent people from scanning money in attempts to stop counterfeiting but never gave it much thought until about two days ago. I needed to do a design for a customer that involved some of the parts of a $1 and a $20 bill in the animation.

I placed the $1 and $20 bill on the scanner and clicked preview. Scanner scanned about 1 inch then stopped. Tried again, scanner scanned 1 inch then stopped. Tried to import that 1 inch but it wouldn't import, just acted like I never clicked import. Now I'm thinking my scanner has something wrong, driver or hardware. I put a photo on the scanner, click preview, it previews fine, scan and it imports fine. I started wondering about if it was the counterfeiting thing, so I put the $1 bill by itself , previewed and scanned both sides no problem. Put the $20 bill by itself and preview stopped at 1 inch and no import.

$5 and $10 work also but not the $20. Had to use digital camera to get the parts I needed. I hate to think how much it cost the manufacturer to add that feature. The scanner by the way is a Canon Pixma MP980.

Anyone else encounter this before ?
 
This "feature" has been around for awhile. I'm sure real criminals could just hack the scanner's firmware.
 
The U.S. Treasury did a revamp of the $20 bill several years ago with many changes to combat counterfeiters. One was installing sensors in printers and scanners as they increased in quality.
 
yup, canon mx700 will scan a single but posted error on a $20

edit: it was a 2004 $20 that failed. however, I just successfully scanned a 1996 $100 though....go figure
 
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Your thread made me try it on my Epson WorkForce 610 and I got this message on my computer:

usdollarbillscan.png


Edit:
I'm trying to see if I can scan directly to a memory card to bypass this (might just be a software restriction).

Edit 2:
Yep, works perfectly if I scan directly to a memory card in the printer.
 
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It's not just scanners that have this.

Some high-end image editor packages have this too. E.g. photoshop may refuse to open a file containing a banknote image.
 
Mark R said:
It's not just scanners that have this.

Some high-end image editor packages have this too. E.g. photoshop may refuse to open a file containing a banknote image.
Click to expand...

I don't know about other software, but Photoshop allows you to open and edit images of banknotes.
 
All of you that have tried scanning bills, your names and numbers have been forwarded to the Secret Service. You are on their radar. I'm sure we'll see your mugshots on America's Most Wanted now.
 
No... That's how we send money in the UK the recipient can then use the serial number at banks or online ...This was a lie
 
zerocool84 said:
All of you that have tried scanning bills, your names and numbers have been forwarded to the Secret Service. You are on their radar. I'm sure we'll see your mugshots on America's Most Wanted now.
Click to expand...

It's not illegal to scan it or make a reproduction, provided you follow the rules:

http://www.rulesforuse.org/pub/index.php?currency=usd&lang=en
The Counterfeit Detection Act of 1992, Public Law 102-550, in Section 411 of Title 31 of the Code of Federal Regulations, permits color illustrations of U.S. currency, provided that:

  1. the illustration is of a size less than three-fourths or more than one and one-half, in linear dimension, of each part of the item illustrated;
  2. the illustration is one-sided; and
  3. all negatives, plates, positives, digitized storage medium, graphic files, magnetic medium, optical storage devices and any other thing used in the making of the illustration that contain an image of the illustration or any part thereof are destroyed and/or deleted or erased after their final use.
Click to expand...
 
I've worked several jobs that included training employees on how to spot counterfeit bills. We used the counterfeit bills we had taken in the past for training tools, including copying counterfeit and real bills for our training manuals. We never had a problem scanning the bills, but it's been 10 years since I last tried.

I could see the technology stopping the casual counterfeiters, but they are not the ones making quality counterfeits, which are the real problem. The Treasury did a pretty good job when they redesigned the U.S. bills to prevent casual counterfeiting.

And only an idiot would try to pass a copy machine counterfeit in the first place, considering how severe the penalty is.
 
Paladin3 said:
I could see the technology stopping the casual counterfeiters, but they are not the ones making quality counterfeits, which are the real problem. The Treasury did a pretty good job when they redesigned the U.S. bills to prevent casual counterfeiting.
Click to expand...


I have a good friend in the printing business. Does everything from screen printing to offset printing and he said the latest bills are not impossible just not worth it. That by the time you got all the tech together to do it you would spend more than printing it would be worth. He said the color changing inks alone are several thousand dollars per pint and the machine to apply them is upwards of $1 million, and that would be just for a tiny part of each bill. Add in the cost to print the other parts and it just isn't worth it.
 
I remember I used to have a scanner that implemented this, but only unidirectionally. You could turn the $20 upside down and it would work.
 
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