Xerox scanners/photocopiers randomly alter numbers in scanned documents

[Newsjock]

http://www.dkriesel.com/en/blog/2013/0802_xerox-workcentres_are_switching_written_numbers_when_scanning

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 lot worse – patches of the pixel data are randomly replaced in a very subtle and dangerous way: The scanned images look correct at first glance, even though numbers may actually be incorrect. Without a fuss, this may cause scenarios 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.

... Today, I had half an hour of conference call with two of Xerox's leaders, and we sorted things out. Here is an upshot of the facts:

http://www.dkriesel.com/en/blog/2013/0806_conference_call_with_xerox

The suggestions of this blog concerning JBIG2 are right
The suggested workaround is indeed a workaround, as it switches off JBIG2
The main problem was, respectively is, a support problem, which would not have curred, if Xerox support would have known their machines.

[BlueJazz]

1. Thanks for posting this. My neighbor works in construction and found this...

,,quite interesting.