The Mystery of the 3 Faces on Vista DVD is Solved

Did you also wonder who the three guys on the Vista DVD is? Well the mystery is solved!

Unfortunately there isn’t anything exotic about it. There is no conspiracy theory, disgruntled employees or hackers. The explanation very simple. Microsoft’s Anti-Piracy Team designed a counterfeit-resistant digital “watermark” for the non-encoded surface of Windows Vista DVDs. That’s it! Booooring.

According to Nick White, Product Manager for the Vista launch team: “The photo in question is only one of multiple images contained in the hologram design, all of whose inclusion serves to make it more difficult to replicate a Windows Vista DVD. The other images are of old master works of art that are in the public domain.”

He continues: “The images are less than 1mm in size and are not visible to the naked eye, so must be viewed using optical magnification. Their presence does not affect the contents of the DVD any more than would applying a label to the front of an audio CD you may have created at home. These security measures were never intended to be impossible to find, but rather difficult to reproduce. While it’s extremely difficult to replicate a holographic design in general, the inclusion of original images makes it that much more so.”

Personally I think filesharing services are a bigger threat than copied DVDs. I am still impress by the resolution of the image.

If you want to know more, read Nick White’s blog Taking a detailed look at Windows Vista DVD hologram