Date: Tue, 06 Aug 2013 21:09:12 -0400
From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us>
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: [WSFA] Xerox workcenters
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

For those of you who have one at work....

Saw this on slashdot.

Excerpt:
  In this article I present in which way scanners / copiers of the Xerox =

WorkCentre Line randomly alter written numbers in pages that are scanned.=

This is not an OCR problem (as we switched off OCR on purpose), it is a l=
ot
worse =C2=96 patches of the pixel data are randomly replaced in a very su=
btle and
dangerous way: The scanned images look correct at first glance, even thou=
gh
numbers may actually be incorrect. Without a fuss, this may cause scenari=
os
like:

     Incorrect invoices
     Construction plans with incorrect numbers (as will be shown later in=

the article) even though they look right
     Other incorrect construction plans, for example for bridges (danger =
of
life may be the result!)
     Incorrect metering of medicine, even worse, I think.

To make things even more worse: The copiers in question are the common Xe=
rox
WorkCentres, and Xerox seemed to be unaware of the issue until we found o=
ut
about it last Wednesday. Whats more, not only one different WorkCentre mo=
del
seems to be affected, as we tested at least two with this issue (Xerox
WorkCentre 7535 and 7556). Additionally, the current software release, as=

installed by xerox support, did not solve the issue, thus, the issue exis=
ted
on the very old release we had installed, as well as on a very new one. T=
he
error has been confirmed by a xerox rental firm in the meantime, and Xero=
x
is investigating as well, so it does not seem to be some dumb handling er=
ror
or something similar (if I was thinking this, I of course would not publi=
sh
it here).

<http://www.dkriesel.com/en/blog/2013/0802_xerox-workcentres_are_switchin=
g_written_numbers_when_scanning?>

mark

--
"UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT information =
is
ENCOURAGED!"
   - Robert McElwain, Net.kook