File talk:Wikinews press pass.png

Efficiency of the watermark on misuse prevention

The "UNOFFICIAL" stamp is ineffective. In about 5 minutes with Photoshop, I could remove it. I'd suggest putting a fake wikinews press-pass, or adding significantly more watermarking features to the image. Perhaps put one of those reflective strips that are hard to copy on the real version? 24.205.34.217 15:22, 7 April 2007 (UTC) Heh, I guess I shouldn't speak before trying, It's a relatively tough watermark. The fact that it changes opacity as it goes up is a definite plus. It still stands that the press pass could be copied and have it's watermark removed. I advise creating a fictional press pass and using it in this one's place.24.205.34.217 15:31, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

What would be the cost of someone managing to create an authentic-looking card? PeteVerdon (talk) 00:06, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Even if the image with the watermark can't be directly unwatermarked (which I don't think is the case), there is already enough info in it to allow someone to recreate the whole thing easily, just match the fonts, colors, positions etc of the texts, and reconstruct the little that is covered of the image on the top and you're done. And though it can be recreated, the soft shadow here and there are barely noticeable, wouldn't be missed under most circumstances where someone would be trying to use a fake pass. IMO the pass should be way more complex, should take some ideas from money bills and other things where the goal is to make it hard to be falsified. --TiagoTiago (talk) 04:15, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Here's what I came up with in a few hours (intentionally defaced and lowres to not make it easy to be used for fake, still shows the result of the removal of the watermark well enough: File:Defaced proof of concept of bypassing the too simple watermark of the press pass.png --TiagoTiago (talk) 21:06, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with PeteVerdon; even if the watermark was never there, what's the worst someone could do with this? All they'd be able to do is potentially get into places they otherwise couldn't, and that wouldn't hurt anyone. Besides, it's simple enough that anybody could just recreate it without the watermark. flarn2006 [u t c] time: 06:02, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Maybe read the press pass article. It's not like this is government issued ID, and offers no rights to the bearer that anyone else ought to have afforded to them. On the contrary we should be glad if this pass is misused, as there is no negative and only positive outcomes that could come from such when it comes to meeting the purpose of the project. 121.211.33.244 (talk) 04:45, 28 November 2015 (UTC)