A German computer scientist, David Kriesel have found than scans of construction plans he made had distorted room dimensions. The changes were said to be made by the Xerox copier he used.
Some users also had the same problem, which they blamed on errors with compression software used in a setting presented by the models.
Though they haven’t issued a solution for the problem, the company told BBC that it was preparing a statement.
Mr. Kriesel’s worry is that numbers could be changed on important documents and invoices.
Given the problem, he asked if erroneous figures could make a company not liable to legal actions.
Niri Shan from a London-based law firm Taylor Wessing told BBC that it could open discussions on interesting legal implications.
“The person who provided the figures would be liable. Then the question would be, could they turn round (to the manufacturer) and say, ‘Hold on a minute, this is your fault’?”
“Often in commercial contracts, the manufacturer may have limitations of liability on consequential loss.”
Upon checking, Mr. Kriesel found that the number “6” and “8” are often interchanged, and it happens with other numbers, too.
A room’s dimension that originally measured 21.11m (277 sq. ft.) shriveled to 14.13m (152 sq. ft.) on his reproduced plans.
The anomaly, he said, is caused by and image compression standard, Jbig2.
Image Compression is classically used to reduce irrelevance and redundancy of the image data in order to be able to store or transmit data in an efficient form.
Jbig2 replaces figures that look the same, meaning numbers that look alike were being mistakably swapped.
Two models affected were the Xerox Workcentre 7535 and 7556, according to Mr. Kriesel. He clarified that the errors only occur on a specific machine setting.
But, because posting details of the errors online, a lot of other users have come forward claiming similar problems with other machines.
