The Null Device

The EURion constellation

A PDF document showing the "EURion constellation"; this is a constellation of five 1mm circles found on European and British banknotes, and recognised by colour photocopiers. (The piece doesn't show exactly which five circles are the constellation, though if it's there, it shouldn't be too hard to find it.) I'm not sure whether the pattern used on US banknotes (and now recognised by commercial image-processing software) is the same or different, or what other anti-copying patterns are used on other currency. Though if each country had its own, it would use a lot of CPU cycles to detect. (via jwz's comments)

There are 3 comments on "The EURion constellation":

Posted by: Alex
http://
Tue Jan 13 12:48:45 2004

A great way to copy-protect your artwork. incorporate the Dots of Doom and no-one can scan and save it. Or something.

Posted by: acb
http://dev.null.org
Tue Jan 13 13:26:33 2004

Unless they use GIMP.

I wonder when they'll get around to banning open-source image-processing software. Europe could probably do so with a central directive right now; as could Australia (it'd probably get bipartisan support in the Senate, as it's good for big business and doesn't affect the average aussie battler). The US theoretically has constitutional amendments that would make these things difficult. Which means that they'd do it, and the Supreme Court would overturn it a year later. Or they'd just make it part of an international treaty.

Posted by: toby
http://
Wed Jan 14 22:20:54 2004

I wonder how many vending machines only use the constellation as a means of identifying banknotes...

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