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lecture: Lies, damned lies and scans

"A copier's output equals its input." You think that's true? You should attend this talk.

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On the scale of things too horrible to contemplate, "document-altering scanner" is right up there with "flesh-eating bacteria". Since 2006, Xerox scancopiers literally are making stuff up. They, for example, replace digits with others in scans. The replacement digits are layouted perfectly into the page, so the errors are hard to see. Sounds unbelievably insidious, but it's true. Drug prescriptions, construction plans, just anything can be affected.

David will not only present how he found the bug and explain it to you in an easily understandable way, suitable for non-teccies as well as teccies. He will also cover in an entertaining fashion how it feels to suddenly face a world-class enterprise in the public, how to disclose responsibly, how to handle a PR storm properly, and how one can try to force the correction of such a disastrous bug. Just anyone may easily encounter such a situation, so David will derive take-home messages for you to act on, which might save *your* bacon one day. For the conspiracy theorists, David will elaborate what all of this has to do with Barack Obama's birth certificate.

"Xerox Can Fix Number-Switching Scanners, but Not Altered Docs", titled "Businessweek" pointedly. Documents produced by hundreds of thousands of devices across enterprises world-wide are now legally challengeable. Even worse: As users have to patch their devices theirselves, odds are that there still are lots and lots of number-changing copiers out there. So, spread the word! It's important you attend.