Edward J OConnell <ejo@world.std.com> wrote:
I work at a graphic arts service bureau, and someone told me that they had seen a canon representative, with a straight face, say at a trade show that there was a chip in these machines that detected the pattern created by currency, and blocked out the image.
Easy to test. Of course, not true--at least, not the canon clc 300 I run.
The control panel of the canon has a list of things you are not supposed to copy. That is the extent of the restriction. For some obscure reason I follow these rules. I'm not sure why.
The chip thing made me laugh. What is amazing to me is that canon would try to create this easily disprovable myth. Has anyone else heard this story? My friend was adamant that he had heard this spiel (and not a friend of his) but I suppose this could itself be an urban myth.
I suppose I could call canon...but attracting that kind of attention to myself seems really stupid...
It's true. Canon did indeed create such a chip. It's the same chip that's used in vending machines to scan dollar bills. They built a prototype copier which prevented copying money, but I don't know if they actually decided to install the chip in all their assembly-line production copiers or not tho.