Talk:EURion constellation

Wired magazine

Is it fair to say that the article appeared in Wired Magazine, when it only appeared on the Wired News website?

Photoshop

The article says that Photoshop refuses to proccess banknotes, this isn't true, it just doesn't print them. +Hexagon1 (talk) 09:40, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Fixed it myself, because no-one apparently cares. +Hexagon1 (talk) 02:37, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Well done; one of the tenets of Wikipedia is to Be Bold, which you've demonstrated excellently. dewet|™ 06:30, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Yaaay! I wiiiin! I wiiiin! Well, not really, I fixed it because everyone is too apathetic to even respond. But there still ought to be some award I should get. :) +Hexagon1 (talk) 13:50, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Pictures of the constellation

I just stumbled across this page, and it really fascinates me. Does it violate law, or otherwise present a problem, to show zoomed-in pictures of where the EURion code appears on modern-day currency? After all, the description of the constellation in regards to US currency was somewhat vague, considering how many digits of 0 there are on the bills... Athenor 06:58, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

See the CBCDG rules for currency image use website. However, I think we have already enough good pictures of the constellation in the article. It was already difficult to arrange the existing images such that the article keeps a reasonable layout on different browsers and column widths. I would advise against adding even more pictures to this already very well-illustrated article. Markus Kuhn 08:52, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Here is a picture of a 500 € note with a zoom on the constellation. Maybe it could replace the image of the 10 € note.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Eurion.jpg

It still seems a bit anarchically destructive to even publicize this, unless it was already widely known to counterfeiters and helps inventors who want to prevent counterfeiting. I'm also wary of a page that so highly commends Markus Kuhn and was discussed (maybe edited) by Markus Kuhn. That seems to be a direct contravention of Wikipedia rules, which decry self-promotion and even editing of pages about friends or family. I'd really like some administrators or sysops to weigh in on this, but I'm not certain how to go about it. Thecurran 08:36, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Are you saying that it would improve the quality and accuracy of this article if I deleted any particular contribution of mine? If so, which particular edit are you concerned about? Or are you, in effect, simply saying that you strongly prefer people mentioned in articles to make their contributions anonymously, rather than under their real name? Markus Kuhn 11:57, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

He's saying it's a COI for you to edit here, and he's correct. 76.22.32.86 (talk) 16:36, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

"Discovered" ?

Markus Kuhn "discovered" it?

This is, to me, a bit misleading. EURion was designed by other people. Markus was just the first public member to realise its existence. True? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Igitur za (talk • contribs) 12:35, 9 March 2007 (UTC).

British Pound

British Pound or Pound Sterling? I'd prefer the second, but if there is a standard within numismatics, or another Wikipedia policy I should be aware of then I'm willing to be purseuded otherwise. --Neo 09:48, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

"Orion"?

Crux, the "Southern Cross", seems more apt. This "EURion" has five points; less than the 7 points that are usually left as a minimum to describe Orion; 3 on the "belt" and 4 on the corners. The "dagger" and "head" are often included to make 9 points. Besides, Orion's corner's are quite rectangular, unlike the more kite-shaped "EURion". Crux, on the other hand, is more kite-shaped, is known for 5 stars, is extremely useful in navigation, & is featured on the national flags of Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and Samoa. Why not name it after Crux, which is geometrically much closer, much more important to the countries of the world, and much more important in astronavigation? Crux has also been seen by every human's ancestors, if one goes back enough; it was even known to the ancient Greeks before millennia of precesssion in Centaurus. This means Crux kind of belongs to humanity, while euros don't even cover Western Europe, let alone its continent, Eurasia, or the world. Thecurran 08:36, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

If the article is correct, then I think you're about five years too late in your suggestion. After all; it is just a name and the discoverer really has a right to call it whatever he wants. --Neo 09:41, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I like the name, it sounds disgusting, and it's about a security feature to randomly make photocopiers not work. I'd like to see how exactly I would need to draw circles on someone's test to prevent the English department from photocopying it. I wonder if any books are printed with this security feature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.91.116.134 (talk) 18:16, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Kind of like an "Ugly T-shirt", William Gibson-style? ;) I'm actually curious as to if there's a move away from purely black and white (read: Infrared, also)cameras thanks to the IR LED trick. Simply add a color filter and it'll no longer be effected by invisible radiation, but sadly at the cost of sensativity. The constellation was obviously chosen because of geometric properties. It has no need for odd frequency hacks (it works on existing sensors assemblies) but depends on a pretty unlikely pattern outside of money. Another trick I've read about is that scanners have 2-line sensors and that you can find hidden patterns in a series of individual pixels with very little CPU power. Kind of like the 32-bit error-correction coding on the old NASA space probes. 71.196.246.113 (talk) 05:34, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Markus on Markus

This is in response to the comment in Talk:EURion_constellation#Pictures_of_the_constellation by User:Markus_Kuhn (MK) that begins with "Are you saying that...". I was not completely certain that MK was the same Markus Kuhn lauded in the article or that MK ever editted the article as opposed to just participating in the discussion. I am now quite sure that MK is that Markus Kuhn and that MK editted the article at least in the period, 19:13, 10 December 2004 - 08:46, 29 July 2006.

I think all Wikipedians should try to follow Wikipedia's rules, which currently ask us to refrain from offering original research, from editing pages personally about ourselves, and especially from promoting ourselves. I think MK should edit MK out of the article, explain with reference to an article (preferrably an academic journal, but at least something widely read) not written by MK or associates how MK contributed to this field, or otherwise lower MK's importance in it.

Some partiality may be inevitable in all expositions but we endeavor to lower it to a level agreeble to most of the community. I think the partiality presented in this article lauds MK quite highly and presents a conflict of interest strong enough to dissuade MK from editting. I think that's why the Wikipedia rules I noted were made. Discussing seems fine to me though. I don't encourage MK to edit this article even anonymously as long as MK is listed in the article & MK's contributions are poorly documented. I would hope all of us show can show the self-restraint appropriate to the rules.

Perhaps MK's contributions are well supported and properly referenced now. I would like to learn of the progress in this matter as well as the legality of publicizing this information in the first place. Thecurran 16:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

For the record:

• Fact: I did create the name "EURion constellation" in February 2002. I have never heard any claim that this term was used by anyone else earlier.
• Fact: I have never heard anyone explain the purpose of this pattern earlier.
• Fact: The first academic meeting where I presented my finding that the five circles that I had copied from a 10 euro note did cause a Xerox color photocopier to refuse the page as a banknote is quoted correctly.
• The existing article before my first edit mentions that the name was coined in 2003 by Markus Kuhn. I did correct the date and I have no idea where the 2003 came from. I did provide a reference of the corrected date in form of a link to the original presentation slide that I had prepared in February 2002.
• I added my surname a second time to rephrase the existing sentence "The EURion constellation was first detected on the new Euro banknotes", because it seemed obvious that this sentence referred to reports that I had first noticed the constellation on a 10 euro note (where it is most prominent), and because I considered the vagueness of passive voice a much greater sin than the risk of being accused of shameless self-promotion. Right or wrong?
• As an academic, I feel that giving and receiving proper credit is important.
• I made numerous other contributions to the article (not all of which survived) that were not directly related to my person and which I'd be happy to justify in detail, time permitting.

So let me ask you again, what exact surviving edit (please provide a link to the diff) are you objecting to, if any? The question about whether you prefer me to make my edits anonymously was of course a rhetorical hint inviting you to consider the unintended consequences of your approach, namely to consider that since determined self-promoters simply hide her tracks by editing anonymously, if you chase self-promoters on Wikipedia simply by matching names, you most likely merely end up hassling and discouraging honest, innocent, valuable contributors, rather than finding any real perpetrators.

Having said that, should you still think that my name appears (in consideration of the above facts) far too prominently and inappropriately (please be detailed and specific), then I'd be happy to provide alternative formulations. But I would appreciate if we could focus on the words in the article and not whether their authors revealed their identity or decided to remain an anonymous sockpuppet. Markus Kuhn 03:20, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

First off, I didn't mean to offend you. In many ways, I'm still a newbie. I hadn't checked the refences at the bottom. I'm much more used to seeing references interspersed throughout academic articles referring to footnotes or the bibliography. The lack of that gave me a feeling that this wasn't such a serious article and I think I was right to be alarmed about the chance of self-promotion when I noticed your name in both places.

I also still agree with the remark that "discover" is an inappropriate term. Cristoforo Colombo didn't discover the Americas and neither did the Aleut, the Rapanui or Leifr Eiríksson. The same goes for James Cook, the Torres Strait Islanders, the Malays, or Willem Janszoon of Australia. Modern history books reflect the precedence of the earlier discoverers even if they did not forge widespread permanent public knowledge in the rest of the world. I will change this word to made the discovery known to the public, because I feel only the inventors of the EURion deserve to be acknowledged as its discoverers, while I acknowledge you as the inventor/coiner of the term and as responsible for making knowledge of it prominent. Does that sound fair? Thecurran 01:23, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

The term discovery seems most commonly used in the sense "observing or finding something unknown to one's culture". You seem to use a more narrow definition, along the lines of "observing or finding something unknown to any human being". None of the cultures or communities that I interact with or am a member of (computer scientists, academic security researchers, steganography researchers, Internet users, banknote users, photocopier users, etc.) seems to have known about the purpose of these circles in early 2002. They still seem to be considered a well-guarded secret among companies and organizations involved in banknote and copying-machine production; my attempts to get NDA-free access to the official specification have not been successful (beyond being told off-the-record that the OMRON company was involved in some way and that the circles also encode the identity of the issuing bank somehow). Anyway, I certainly find "uncovered" just as acceptable as "discovered". Markus Kuhn 10:03, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad we found an agreement. It seems that discovery may have a broader definition in Europe. In former European colonies like AU, CA, NZ, US, and ZA, discovery has a negative charge from the old, racist attitudes that first European explorers were the only important discoverers and that the previous inhabitants were people of lower value. I understand now that you weren't using the same narrow sense and I apologize for getting so agitated. Onya,m8Thecurran 12:30, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

A similar, fictional anti-counterfeit mechanism

This is a bit OT but the similarity of "...later noted simple integer ratios between the squared distances of nearby circles..." reminded me of something similar written about by sci-fi author Jack Vance. From my memory of reading his books, a long time ago at that, his fictional banknotes were protected by scoring (inverted ridging) across their width, from the end of the note, at a distance proportional to any four square roots of the first eleven primes.
Trivia I grant, but fyi anyhow. 86.156.213.85 (talk) 21:23, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Hungary

Could somebody please indicate or verify the sources stating that Hungary has been using the EURion constellation on the 500 forint notes? I'm from there, and I've never seen a Hungarian note with the EURion circles on it, and I do pay attention to them. I checked the National Bank's website's [1] on Banknotes, and there is nothing that would specifically say that there was a security upgrade, the announcement of which is official MNB policy. I also checked Ron Wise's Banknoteworld.com, but there was no image of a "new and upgraded" 500 forint note. Ron's site is usually very up-to-date. As I could not find anything to prove the validity of the information on the article, I recommend it for correction. George Adam Horváth (talk) 08:30, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

See [2]. The circles are under the MNB logo.--Egrian (talk) 12:05, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Omron anti-photocopying feature

I have found the Reserve Bank of India has officially used the term Omron anti-photocopying feature.[3] Since EURion constellation is a made-up word by a third party, it's better to rename this article.

The International Bank Note Society uses Omron rings.[4] It sounds better than Omron anti-photocopying feature, but the society is a non-profit organization for paper money collectors and has no official status.

According to Owen Linzmayer of Banknote News, Omron rings is a common name and many central banks call it Omron security feature,[5] but I cannot find an official source. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 10:41, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

More info & other sources

[6]

[7]

There's a few references at the bottom of that first post.

72.184.227.106 (talk) 23:15, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Bold?

Why exactly are some of the countries and currencies in the table in bold?  A p3rson ‽ 20:19, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I think it's because all denominations of that country's notes contain the feature. -- Arwel Parry (talk) 21:16, 25 April 2010 (UTC)